McCurdy leads GPS into second round

Somehow Brooke McCurdy kept finding herself alone, unguarded outside the 3-point line and able to launch bombs repeatedly without much harassment.

Girls Preparatory School’s talented guard made Harpth Hall pay for it each time, connecting on three key 3-pointers in the third quarter — and six total treys for the game — to help the Bruisers pull away for a 53-34 win over the visiting Honeybears in the Division II-AA state tournament’s first round Tuesday night.

“I was really excited before the game, and once I found my shot early, it gave me a lot of confidence,” said McCurdy, who scored a game-high 24 points.

McCurdy got the GPS offense going early with backto-back 3-pointers in the first quarter but failed to score the rest of the half. She picked up the pace in the third quarter, answering two scoring runs by Harpeth Hall that cut the Bruisers’ lead to five and pushing the advantage back out to eight. Her final 3 of the quarter came just before the buzzer and extended the lead to 12.

The Bruisers (15-13) maintained a double-digit lead the rest of the way to advance to Friday’s quarterfinal round, when they will play in the Memphis area at Briarcrest. It’s the first time in four years GPS has advanced past the first round of the state tournament.

“She got some early momentum for us, and that seemed to get her confidence going,” Bruisers coach Jay Watts said. “It also opened up our offense for some others to contribute. That was a big deal, getting several players involved.”

It was GPS’s sixth win in its last nine games, with one of the three losses being by double digits to Harpeth Hall 10 days ago.

“We had struggled with some consistency issues this season, but the girls executed well tonight,” Watts added. “The last time we played them the ball would hit every part of the rim and not go in. It was just one of those nights where nothing seemed to go right for us. But we swung that back our way tonight.”