Despite the adage it’s tough to play and defeat the same team three times in one season, Greensburg’s girls accomplished exactly that Tuesday, easily downing Fowler 68-48 at Mullinville to advance to the semi final round of Regional play Friday night at Coldwater.
   After defeating the Lady ‘Bugs by 16 January 25 at the league tourney and only by four a week later in Fowler, Marshall Ballard’s team erased any doubt about this one early, rushing to a 21-7 first quarter lead, and holding a 59-27 edge heading into the fourth period.
   “We talked before the game about our defense,” Ballard said later.  “We wanted to come out and take away their offensive looks and then grab every loose ball and every rebound…once we jumped out to an early lead, we just kept rolling.”
   Key to the easy win was the kind of offensive balance that can make GHS a tough out in their Regional, four Lady Rangers hitting double figures led by Lindsey Heft’s 15.
  “It was nice to our bigs getting into the mix of the offense,” Ballard said, an obvious reference to Megan Booth and Cheyenne Morehead getting 12 and 10 points respectively.
   Standing between Greensburg and the Regional finals, however, is tourney top seed Ashland, to whom GHS narrowly lost 65-63 February 11 in Ashland.  Ballard was direct in naming what it will take to get past the Lady Jays.
   “We really need to be better on defense against Ashland this time around,” he said.  “There is no way they should have scored 65 points against us.  We need to play better help defense and rebound a lot better than we did in our last meeting.”
Haviland outlasts Macksville…
   The Lady Dragons, meanwhile, outlasted a four-win Macksville squad in Haviland Tuesday night, emerging with a 52-47 win that sends them into Regional semis Friday night at Skyline against the Lady ‘Birds.  Skyline easily defeated Haviland 33-16 in mid-December.
   HHS saw its 12-point halftime lead largely melt away in the third quarter when the Lady ‘Stangs closed to within four and came to within three twice in the fourth before a couple of late offensive put backs secured the Haviland win.
   Amanda Watson and Hannah Williams led the Haviland attack with 17 and 13 points respectively, hitting five treys between them. Yashaya Susoeff and Misty Murrow both had ten for the visitors, while Megan Wood tallied 15.