BROOKSVILLE — Augusta and Bracken County played a girl/boy doubleheader on Saturday night in Brooksville.  The Bracken County Lady Bears thrived, beating Augusta 60-21, while the Panthers survived, defeating the Polar Bears 51-49.

Bracken County rolled through their cross-county rival in a 39-point victory in the girls basketball game.  The Lady Bears doubled up on Augusta every quarter, holding Augusta single digits in all four frames.  Bracken scored 13, 12, 12, and 29, while Augusta scored 6, 4, 4, and 7 each quarter.  

Savannah Kelsch scored a career-high 25 points for the Lady Bears, going 10 of 12 from the field, 1 of 1 from three, and 4 of 5 on free throws.  Kailey Sharp added 12 and Nicole Archibald had 11.  Bracken shot 6 of 15 from three and 21 of 44 total from the field.

Augusta was led in scoring by Laci Tackett with 7 points.  The Lady Panthers failed to make any threes out of their 21 attempts and shot 8 of 41 from the floor.  They shot from 5 of 12 from the foul line.

The win put Bracken County at 10-6, and the loss put Augusta at 7-11.  

Game Photos: https://photos.10thregion.com/gbk-brackencounty61-augusta20-012525

The boys basketball game was a different story.  Bracken County, who has shown steady improvement throughout the year, had a chance to upset their rival but fell short, 51-49.  

The Polar Bears were coming off a 74-66 loss over Mason County, a closer-than-expected margin.  Augusta had defeated Bracken 78-57 on December 13th.  

Ashton Buchanan did not play for Bracken as he suffered a concussion during the Mason County game two days prior.  Buchanan has missed five games already this season with a foot injury.  He is averaging 8.2 points and 6 rebounds per game.

At the end of the first quarter, Augusta led 14-11; at halftime, it was 25-22 in favor of the Panthers.

Noah Nelson’s three with 7:09 left in the game made 42-41, Bracken still trailing.  Augusta was forced to call a timeout.  

After the timeout, Teegan Feldhaus got a steal and drove to the opposite end of the court for a layup.  Bracken County had their first lead, 43-42, with seven minutes left.

Augusta would retake the lead, 44-43, a minute later with Keeton Bach’s putback.

Noah Nelson went to the line after being fouled on a shot.  He made 1 of 2 to tie the game up at 44 with 5:23 left.

The final minutes went back and forth until 24.5 seconds were left.  Bracken County had the ball out of their timeout and was down 51-49.  However, the Polar Bears would turn down a few moderately contested looks from three and fail to get a shot off. 

Keeton Bach led Augusta in scoring with 17 points and Maddox Hesler added 14.  Noland Young had 13 points and 9 rebounds.  Augusta shot 4 of 17 from three and 20 of 55 from the field.  

Teegan Feldhaus led Bracken County with 15 points, and Noah Nelson scored 14. 

Augusta improved to 10-6 and Bracken County fell 5-14.

Game Photos: https://photos.10thregion.com/bbk-augusta51-brackencounty49-012525