Lady Jackets belt Paulding, remain red hot
The Calhoun High School girls basketball team remained on a roll Wednesday night, clobbering Paulding County, 55-22, at The Hive.
The victory was the team’s sixth in seven games to start the season with head coach Jaime Echols’ using everyone on his roster in the easy win that saw them never trail.
The win over the 6A Patriots came just 24 hours after they belted Pickens County, 61-46, Tuesday night to start what was a good week with two wins in two games.
From the very beginning Wednesday evening, Calhoun’s pressure defense and depth was too much for Paulding County, with the Yellow Jackets racing out to a 10-0 lead and never looking back.
Senior post player Dora Moore started the scoring by taking a lob pass and banking it off the window and freshman Kat Atha converted a ahead-of-the-pack layup for a quick Calhoun 4-0 lead one minute into the game.
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Meanwhile, the Patriots were throwing the ball all over the gym, giving the Lady Jackets a couple of more breakaway opportunities.
Moore put another one in off the glass and freshman Sha’Niah Dorsey then drained a long three-pointer and Atha added a foul shot, giving the home team a 10-0 lead with 5:04 left in the first period.
The Patriots got on the board with a three-pointer of their own, but the Jackets kept the pressure on with Lauren Watson and Malaysha Winston adding back-to-back layups, pushing the lead to 14-3.
The visitors hit a shot inside to close it to 14-5, but Watson, who had seven in the quarter, nailed another three, Aryian Berner followed with a layup off a nice pass, and Britiya Curtis made another ahead-of-the-pack layup, pushing their advantage to 21-5 with under 30 seconds left in the quarter.
They would lead 21-7 going into the second period.
And in that second quarter, they totally put it away by outscoring the Patriots, 15-3, for a 36-10 halftime margin.
They began the second frame with an 8-0 run to take their first 20-point lead of the game at 30-10, holding a
30-7 lead before PC made its second three-point shot of the night for its only points in the second frame.
Curtis answered the Patriots’ trey with a three-pointer of her own, giving the Jackets their second 23-point lead at 33-10.
Winston added a free throw and Atha put back a miss to close the half
with the home team in front, 36-10.
They would begin the third period by scoring the first five points of the third period on another Atha putback and a Watson three-point shot for a 41-10 lead and would take their biggest lead of the game on five straight points from Dorsey later in the quarter for a 50-12 margin.
They would match that 38-point spread with a 52-14 lead and would be up 52-16 to start the final period.
From that, Echols cleared the bench as the starters and team enjoyed the victory.
In the win Tuesday night over Pickens County, the Lady Jackets took control of the game by outscoring this PC-initialed team 20-7 in the second period, to take a 15-12 lead after the first and build it to 35-19 at halftime.
Pickens topped the Lady Jackets, 12-11, in the third period to cut the gap to 46-31 heading into the fourth, but would never get closer than 12 in the final eight minutes as both teams scored 15 points.
The Lady Jackets now have some time to enjoy their 6-1 start as they are off until Monday, Dec. 20 when they play North Murray at 11:30 a.m. that day, which is the first real day of the Christmas break.
Echols’ team is then scheduled to play games on Tuesday, Dec. 21 and Wednesday, Dec. 22 before they are back at it with another tournament, starting on Dec. 28.
The Jackets are 6-1 overall.