While students in Lexington, South Carolina are finishing up their first semester, it’s summer vacation time down under in Australia.

This explains why the Aussie Basketball Travellers girls’ team was in town to play against the fifth-ranekd Lady Wildcats. They came away with a 49-40 victory to snap Lexington’s five-game winning streak.

Made up of high school students from different areas of Australia, the Travellers are on a several weeks long American tour, playing different local teams at each stop. The visit here to Lexington continued a tradition interrupted by pandemic restrictions the last couple of years.

The Aussie Travellers team established their game from the start, employing constant full court pressure that threw the Lady Wildcats off their routine and kept their usually excellent outside shooting to a minimum. 

The Travellers took the lead early by scoring points in transition, but Lexington kept it close in the first period by creating turnovers on the other end. However, the relentless pressure from the Aussie Travellers continued to give them more scoring opportunities as they dictated the tempo to lead 27-20 at halftime.

In the second half, the Lady Wildcats began to find open players under the basket, utilizing extra passes to score and becoming more disruptive on the defensive end. They closed the score to 29-26 midway through the third period, but that was as close as Lexington got down the stretch.

The Aussie Travellers pushed their lead back up on a couple of three-point shots and some stifling defense of their own to close out the win.

After the game, Wildcats head coach Molly Goodrich noted the benefits of playing this kind of team.

“This is probably the most physical team that we’ve played, and they’re definitely a lot bigger than us at almost every position,” she said. “It’s good for us to go through playing a team like this and learn from it. You can’t make some of the passes we tried to and you can’t dribble that much. It’s going to make us better in the long run.”

Lexington (7-3) next travels to Spring Valley on Dec. 13. 

Gilbert 79, Brookland-Cayce 40

Taylor Spencer scored 28 points, Ahleira Leaphart finished with 26 and Kylie Morton had 11 points to lead the 10th ranked Lady Indians. 

Gilbert (7-1) heads to Pelion on Dec. 12. 

Chapin 41, Irmo 38 (OT)

The Lady Eagles improved to 5-2 on the season with the non-region win.

Airport 42, Brookland-Cayce 11 

River Bluff 37, South Aiken 24 

Boys basketball

Airport 52, Brookland-Cayce 48

An 8-0 run to end the game enabled the Eagles to hand their crosstown rival and sixth-ranked Bearcats their first loss of the season.

Irmo 84, Chapin 61

Madden Collins score 19 points and A.J. Brand added 16 points and four rebounds to lead the seventh ranked Yellow Jackets. 

Teandre Summons finished with 11 points for Irmo (5-1), who play host to River Bluff Dec. 13.

Cayman Collins had a game-high 27 points and Demarius Prophet had nine for the Eagles. 

Milton (Ga.) 55, Gray Collegiate 53

Montraivis White scored 21 points and dished out four assists and Avantae Parker had 13 points and seven rebounds in the loss at the Hoophall West in Scottsdale, Ariz.