Middle school girls basketball teams advance to finals
Published 10:28 am Saturday, December 14, 2024
MOULTRIE – Neither of the Colquitt County Lady Packer middle school basketball teams led at halftime of their second-round playoff games Thursday, but both managed to win and advance to the championship round of the Southwest Georgia Middle School Athletic Conference.
Both will play in championship games next week.
The eighth-grade team will play host to Valdosta Middle School at 4:30 p.m. Monday at the C.A. Gray gymnasium.
The seventh-grade team will travel to play Newbern Middle School at 4:30 p.m. Tuesday.
The sixth- and seventh-grade team closed its game on a 26-0 run to win 30-10 over Hahira, and the eighth-grade team got big defensive stops and hit clutch free throws down the stretch to win 36-33 over Pine Grove.
The seventh-grade team trailed 8-2 at the end of the first quarter and 10-6 at halftime before putting together a 15-0 third quarter to break the game open.
D’Kyra Jones had 10 of her 23 in that decisive third period.
“We turned up the defensive intensity after halftime,” coach Jon Scroggins said. “Kyra, Mea (Rodriguez) and Caitlyn (Spralding) made things very difficult on their ball-handlers.
“We forced a lot of live-ball turnovers and converted them into layups.”
Makairi James contributed three points and Spralding and Rodriguez added a basket apiece to round out the scoring for the Lady Packers.
“These girls work so hard and have improved so much,” Scroggins added. “The hard work has paid off, but I keep reminding them, it’s still a game and it’s supposed to be fun. Tonight was a lot of fun.”
In the second game of the doubleheader, there were six lead changes in just the first half, as neither team could build more than a four-point lead.
“That was two teams who didn’t want their season to end,” coach Kim Taylor said. “I told them at halftime, we were going to see who wanted it more.”
The teams were tied going into the locker room and they seemed to match each other shot-for-shot until the final three minutes when Addison Wiley started going aggressively to the basket.
Wiley hit a driving layup, then got fouled on two other trips and made three of her four free throws, giving her five of her nine points for the game during crunch time.
On the other end of the floor, Tnyha Young and Delyzsha Tillman anchored the defense that forced the Vikettes to take tough shots, then got the rebounds that held them to one shot per possession.
“We gave up too many open shots early,” Taylor said. “We did a better job in the second half of forcing them to take tough, contested shots.”
Kyndle Pettis hit three 3-pointers and led all scorers with 13 points.
Wiley added nine, Young had six and Kylie Pettis and Tillman contributed four each.