Baylor girls cruise past PJP in opening round
Pope John Paul II needed some divine intervention to compete with Baylor during Tuesday’s Division II-AA girls’ playoff basketball game at Duke Gymnasium.
Obviously, in light of the 67-25 final score, it never came.
The Lady Red Raiders (13-12) led 27-0 after one period and scored the game’s first 35 points. The Lady Knights did not score until the 4:12 mark in the second quarter and trailed 46-5 at halftime.
Baylor will play at Brentwood Academy in the second round Friday.
“We shot it well tonight, which we’ve done the last four or five games,” said Baylor coach John Gibson, whose team came out with a purpose. “We’ve put a lot of new stuff in the last two weeks, things we’ll need if we are going to make a deep tournament run. We
wanted to work on getting the ball down the floor and getting quick open shots, and the girls did just that.”
Gibson played his starters just over five
minutes in the first period and four in the second. During that time, the Lady Raiders got any shot they wanted and forced nearly 20 turnovers
(some, though, were self-inflicted).
Grace Wardeberg led the early onslaught with 13 points, Mya Long had 12 and Reagan Conley added 11. Gibson put his starters back in to begin the second half (under a running clock), which was enough time for Long to score nine more points and lead the team with 22.
Most of the second half belonged to the bench, with reserves Peyton Randolph, Skylar Brown and Paris Buckner getting big cheers from the relaxing starters after scoring.
“They deserve it,” Gibson said of the reserves’ second-half attention. “A team is a team, not just a few players. Some players log most of the minutes, which is the way it always is, but it’s nice when those kids get to play. They work hard in practice every day, too, so to get to enjoy this and get cheered on by their teammates is a good reward.”
Contact Lindsey Young at lyoung@timesfreepress. com or at 423-757-6296; follow on Twitter @youngsports22.