District play started Tuesday night for the area 1A girls teams as Forestburg hosted Bellevue.
The undermanned Lady Eagles won 47-20 against the Lady Horns despite a close first half.
Bellevue comes into district play with only five players on its roster. This has caused the team to go away from its typical full-court press and up-tempo style of play since the team has no depth. Autsin Ford and Grace Martin are the only upperclassmen.
Forestburg comes into district play leaning heavily on Faith Moore and Braylee Briles scoring the ball and playing scrappy zone defense since the team does not have a monster post presence for the first time in years.
The game started out as a low scoring affair. The first quarter barely totaled more than 10 points as Forestburg led 6-5.
The Lady Horns were trying to use some full-court pressure, but it didn’t affect the Lady Eagles that much.
Bellevue sat back in a zone and its players started to aggressively jump the passing lanes for steals. This led to better scoring chances in transition since the team was not making its shots in the half court and Forestburg was doing a good job of rebounding the basketball.
The Lady Eagles led 15-12 heading into halftime. The Lady Horns were trying to get baskets at the rim, but were not rewarded with any free throw attempts in the first half compared to Bellevue’s eight attempts.
The Lady Eagles doubled down on going for steals to come out in the second half and were able to turn more of them into easy points.
Bellevue’s lead went up to 24-12 midway through the quarter as the Lady Eagles started playing with more energy as the lead went up. They started getting more offensive rebounds for second chance points and the free throw attempts kept coming.
The Lady Horns could not keep up offensively as the turnovers prevented them from running their offense and getting shots at the rim.
Forestburg scored all six of its points in the last few minutes of the third quarter, but not before Bellevue’s lead had turned to double-digits.
The Lady Eagles led 31-18 heading into the fourth quarter.
It was more of the same for Bellevue in the final period. Steals, layups and free throw attempts off of offensive rebounds allowed the Lady Eagles lead to continue to grow.
Forestburg’s offense was only able to score one basket in the final period.
Bellevue did have one of its players foul out of the game which meant the team had to play the rest of the way a player down. Thankfully for the Lady Eagles, it was with only 2:32 left in the game and they were up 44-20.
The final score was 47-20.

To read the full story, pick up a copy of the weekend edition of the Bowie News.