Lady Jackets rally to beat Sonoraville
The Calhoun Lady Jackets’ seniors went into Saturday’s game with one clear goal – to beat rival Sonoraville for the first time in their high school career.
They didn’t let a doubledigit halftime deficit deter them from that goal either as they turned the momentum around in the second half and held the Lady Phoenix to seven points over the final two quarters to secure the highly-coveted and longawaited win by a 50-41 score.
“These seniors hadn’t ever beaten Sonoraville in the last four years so last night after the game at Cartersville we challenged them to break that streak today,” said Calhoun head coach Jaime Echols. “They responded. Sometimes we’ve played down to our competition this season or just haven’t been consistent every night, but when we play with focus, we can play with anyone. And we played a very focused game today, especially
in the second half. Games like this when we can beat a very good team like Sonoraville is, it should show our girls that they should believe we can play with anybody.”
Calhoun (11-8) trailed 3422 at the half following Sonoraville putting together a 14-4 run to end the second quarter, but the Lady Jackets immediately turned the game in their favor with a 12-0 run to open the third quarter and tie the game at 34-34. The teams battled back and forth for the rest of the period with the Lady Phoenix (13-4) grabbing a 40-39 advantage heading to the fourth and final quarter.
The Lady Jackets finished the game strong, especially on the defensive end as they held Sonoraville to just one point in the final quarter and got big buckets from multiple players, including seven from Britiya Curtis, to outscore their rival visitors 11-1 and seal the victory.
Echols said despite the score not being in their favor at the half, he was encouraged by the defensive effort his team had over the first two quarters and reassured his players at the half if they continue to stick with it and make a few minor adjustments, they could really make things hard on Sonoraville in the third and
fourth.
“I thought we played pretty well in the first half defensively,” said Echols. “We felt if we could correct a few things it would give us a chance to get back in the game. We were behind 12 points, but we started to make those corrections and kept plugging
along and we looked up and had the lead there in the fourth quarter.”
Curtis had a big night to lead the offensive charge for Calhoun with 23 points, including three from beyond the arc. Ashlyn Brzozoski added 12 points, all coming on her four made 3s. Curtis
and Brzozoski combined for 23 of the Lady Jackets’ 28 second-half points as Curtis used her ability to get into the paint to both score and set up Brzozoski for some open looks at 3 in the corner.
“We kept telling them if we could penetrate Sonoraville’s zone we could get a good look at a shot or dish it out for a corner 3,” said Echols. “Britiya was able to get it into the middle, and Ashlyn found her spot over on the right corner, and they both made shots when they got good looks. It’s nice when you can draw something up, and we can go out and execute it.”
Lyndi Rae Davis added nine points for Calhoun as well.
Sonoraville’s lone player in double figures was Alexa Geary with 17 points, including six of the Lady Phoenix’s seven total in the second half. Matti Parker added nine points, and Lindsay Bowman scored five.
The Lady Jackets will get a few days of rest following the big win before being back on their home court on Friday for a Region 7-AAAAA showdown against Hiram at 7 p.m.
Following a grueling fourgame week that concluded with Saturday’s loss at Calhoun, Sonoraville is back at it on Tuesday when they travel to LaFayette at 6 p.m. to get back into the Region 6-AAA schedule. They then finish off the week with home region games against Murray County at 6 p.m. on Thursday and North Murray at 7 p.m. on Friday.