Lady Phoenix make 7-4A opener 5 straight
The Sonoraville High School girls basketball team won its fifth straight game Friday night, belting Southeast Whitfield 53-21 in the teams’ Region 7-4A first game of the winter at The Furnace.
And that was the most important part of it all because the win gave the Lady Phoenix an early 1-0 record in the league with Carrollton Central coming to town Tuesday night before the hit the road Friday to go to Cedartown with Region play now in full swing. (Details of the Sonoraville-Central game were not available at press time).
Besides Sonoraville, Northwest Whitfield and Heritage also got off to 1-0 starts Friday in the first night of the 10-game regular season schedule. Northwest Whitfield was a 6423 victor over Cedartown and Heritage was a 63-32 victor over Central, meaning all of the girls’ debut games in the league were one-sided.
Sonoraville will play the teams they are tied with right now next week to end the first half of the Region slate.
Using exceptional defense that never allowed the Lady Raiders to score more than seven points in any quarter and with four players reaching double digit scoring, the Phoenix continued their winning ways after a rough start to the season.
Southeast Whitfield’s second trip to Gordon County in four days (they beat Gordon Central last Tuesday night 43-40) did not go nearly as well as the first one with the home team simply building on its lead no matter what group of players were on the court.
Junior Ella Kate Walraven netted seven of her game-high 16 points on
three hoops and a foul shot in the first quarter to hoist the Phoenix to a 9-5 lead to start the second period.
Sonoraville seized command of the game in the second period, topping the Lady Raiders 19-4 to hold a 28-9 margin at halftime.
Freshman Lakelin Hall had seven of those 19 on two buckets and a trey and Walraven and freshman Layla Towsend had five more apiece as that trio combined for 17 in the period. Junior Erin Garland had the team’s other basket.
In the second half, Sonoraville head coach Stephanie Caudell went mainly with her reserves but the Phoenix still dominated, outscoring the Lady Raiders, 25-12 in the final 16 minutes to take a 30-point lead early in the fourth.
After Walraven’s 16, Garland finished the night with 13 while Hall and Townsend each had 10.
Southeast Whitfield had two girls score seven points each to lead the way for the Raiders.
Sonoraville stood 5-11 on the season heading into its game against Carrollton Central Tuesday night.