Cortland girls basketball team remains unbeaten following win against county rival Homer (photos included)

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Varsity Girls Basketball: Cortland vs. Homer (Photo provided by Kevin L. Smith of The Cortland Voice).

The Cortland Lady Purple Tigers hosted their county rival Homer (Lady Trojans) at Cortland junior-senior high school Tuesday night. Cortland won the game with a score of 68-23.

With this result, Cortland improved their unbeaten record to 5-0, while Homer fell to an overall record of 2-4.

This was both teams’ first encounter of the regular season.

The Lady Tigers dominated the game from the start, getting a 36-12 lead at halftime.

“I think we did well,” said Cortland head coach Janice Meyer. “We wanted to keep playing our game, and we did. We wanted to keep our turnovers low, dominate the boards, and keep the gap as big as we could.

After obtaining a big lead, Cortland was able to rotate players throughout the rest of the game.

“We got a big lead in our last game, and we got a big lead in a few of our other games, so I don’t want to compromise valuable minutes through the girls that need it,” stated coach Meyer. “We were able to get a lot of different combinations. I saw a lot of progress protecting the basketball. I know it’s a big win, but those little things matter down the stretch. So seeing some of those little things was good. We missed a couple of things, but all in all, I thought it all went pretty well.”

Cortland continued to take over the game in the second half, leading them to ultimately win the game.

Here is a score breakdown of the game:

Team	1st	2nd	3rd	4th	Final
Cortland	16	20	19	13	68
Homer	5	7	3	8	23

Cortland was led by Valerosa Gambitta (20 points), Kendall Mack (14 points), Claire Turner (10 points), and Aubree Larkin (9 points).

Homer was led by Lauren Franco (7 points) and Kaylee Darling (5 points).

“I think the big thing with us is playing within our role,” said coach Meyer. “When something was not working, we went into different options, which were great. A lot of our bench people got super involved. Kartyr (Hubbard) coming in for Claire (Turner) was huge today, and all my new sophomores and juniors are shot-ready, and are not afraid to get offensive looks.”

Cortland and Homer will be playing each other again on January 25th, 2024 at Homer high school.

Cortland’s next game will be played on the road against Chittenango on Thursday (December 21st) at 7pm; while Homer’s next game will be played on the road against Westhill this Thursday (December 21st) at 7pm.