Warriors start second half of region play
The Gordon Central High School girls basketball team has been a force all season long.
Now the Lady Warriors are looking to get on a roll with the first half of the 2A Region 7 schedule concluding Wednesday night with a home date against Model.
The Warriors, who are 3-2 in the league, looked like they might have that chance last week, winning a 48-46 thriller over conference foe Dade County last Tuesday night to snap a five-game losing streak and get back to over .500 in the league. But a couple of ailments on the boys team forced a few players into quarantine and out of caution, both the girls (and boys) games against Dalton Academy Friday and then Unity Christian on Saturday were canceled.
“We’re going to try to reschedule those games,” Gordon Central head coach Maci Mills said. “We were looking forward to those games because we’re still working on having everybody together and we’re still working on some things that we would have gotten the chance to work on against two teams that aren’t in our region, but unfortunately we couldn’t play them. But we’re going to try and reschedule them.”
Their one win last week was a biggie, however, in the form of a close-knit battle over Dade County that kept the Warriors near the top of the current 2A Region 7 standings.
And it was a nail-biter-to-the-elbows victory with the Trojans missing a lastsecond shot as the horn sounded and the Gordon Central girls celebrated.
“It was definitely a close game,” Mills said. “It gave me a few more gray hairs. We played well but Dade was right there with us all the way. We had the lead most of the game and most of the fourth quarter. I think it was tied one time there in the fourth quarter, but it was a good win. We really needed it and I thought we played well.”
Senior post player Kim Passley, in just her third game back from a broken hand, had a season-high 19 points to lead her team and senior guard Brooke Wilson added 12 more.
Mills said the team is starting to gel a little more with each passing day since Passley’s return.
“We did a much better job of playing
together with Kim back than we did the week before,” Mills said. “And that was very good to see. And she and Brooke and everyone played very well against Dade. It was a good win for us because it truly could have gone either way at the end there. Dade County had a last-second shot and fortunately for us, they missed it. But it was a real close game all the way and one we felt about winning.”
Model will enter Wednesday’s encounter at Gordon
Central with a 1-4 record in the Region and the Warriors just 48 hours later, start the second half of the league schedule with a road game Friday evening at Coosa, which starts this week 0-5 in the Region.
“It’s a big week for us,” Mills said. “We’ve got two important games. We need to end the first half of the Region schedule strong against Model and we need to come out play well against Coosa so we can start the second half on a good note. So I think it’s a big week for us.”
Going into this week, Fannin County, which made the state tournament last year, was leading the league with
a perfect 5-0 mark and Pepperell was a game behind them at 4-1. Gordon Central was third at 3-2 and Dade County was fourth at 2-2. Chattooga is a game behind the Warriors in fifth place at 2-3 while Model is 1-4 and then Coosa.
The top two teams in 2A Region 7 at the end of the regular season automatically advance to the state playoffs, while a tournament is held for the next four teams in the standings to determine who gets the final two playoff berths. Mills said she and her team wants to get in via the one or two-seed path instead of having to play their way in.
“I don’t think anything’s really changed from my perspective,” Mills said. “I think Fannin is playing the best and probably the team to beat, but after that, I think we’re all pretty even. I think it’s just whoever is able to bring it every game with the most consistency is the team that has the best chance to challenge them. So I think Fannin is probably going to get that top seed and right now our goal is to get that second seed, so we automatically get in. And we’ve still got a shot to do that, we’ve just got to play good basketball.”
The Lady Warriors are 9-6 overall.