Lady Jackets hit single-game season high
♦ Calhoun girls had first-place showdown Friday night with Hiram after 3-0 league start
Scoring a single-game season high 76 points Tuesday night, the Calhoun girls basketball team remained perfect in Region 7-5A with a 76-56 victory over Cartersville at The Hive.
The win elevated head coach
Jaime Echols’ team to 3-0 in the league and set up their battle with also 3-0 Hiram Friday night at The Hive. The winner of that game (details were not available at press time) will be the last unbeaten in the Region as everyone prepares for the end of the first half of the 7-5A schedule Tuesday night.
And the Lady Yellow Jackets will be at Dalton Tuesday night for the fifth of their 10 scheduled Region games. The Lady Catamounts have an impressive record at 11-5, but lost two of their first three Region games with setbacks to Hiram and Cass.
But last Tuesday night, the Yellow Jackets were strumming the strings on the hoops all night long with just their five starters scoring, but the balance was incredible with two of them throwing in 17 points while two more had 16 and the other added 10 more.
Senior shooting guard Lauren Watson — on the strength of five three’s — and sophomore guard S’aniah Dorsey — who had three more treys — each had 17.
Senior guard Britiya Curtis — who finished with four three’s — had 16 points along with sophomore forward Kat Atha, who had nine points in the fourth quarter when the Lady Jackets really opened the game open.
Sophomore post Allie Duke also had 10 in the contest.
From the start, it was track with a basketball with both squads racing up-and-down the court, looking to run at every opportunity.
The Yellow Jackets would finish the game with 12 makes from beyond the three-point stripe and score 20 points or more in three of the four quarters.
Cartersville, which suffered its first Region setback, would take just one lead and that was 2-0 on the first points of the game — two foul shots 10 seconds after the opening tip-off.
Curtis hit a three-point shot at the other end to begin a 9-0 Calhoun scoring run that would leave the Lady Hurricanes chasing their hosts all night long.
A Dorsey running layup, a Duke foul shot, and Watson’s first three of the night capped it off with another Cartersville foul shot closing the gap to 9-3 halfway through the quarter.
A Curtis 15-footer pushed Calhoun’s lead to 11-3 before the Hurricanes scored four straight to cut it to 11-7. But Watson’s second 3-pointer began a 9-1 spree that saw Dorsey add another trey and Watson make her third in seven minutes to give Calhoun a 20-9 lead at precisely
the one-minute mark.
Cartersville made another basket, but Curtis answered with the Jackets’ fifth three of the quarter for a 23-11 Calhoun lead.
The Lady Jackets cooled off a bit in the second period, scoring just 10 points while Cartersville notched 12 to close the gap to 10 at the break at 33-23.
After the teams exchanged hoops to start the second, Cartersville went on a 6-0 run
to close to 25-19 but Duke made a free throw, Atha put back a missed shot and Watson buried a shot from the corner and Calhoun’s lead was back to 13 at 31-18 with just under three minutes left until halftime.
In the third quarter, Cartersville did get within eight points a couple of times, but the Calhoun girls just kept pouring in shots to hold the Purple Hurricanes off.
Calhoun was up 43-33
with just under three minutes remaining in the quarter when they really began to get some separation, closing the period with a 10-2 run.
Curtis hit a 3-point shot on the baseline to start it and then Atha and Duke scored off offensive rebounds for a 50-33 lead. Cartersville got a short shot, but Watson remained hot from long range with another three as the horn sounded for a 53-35 Calhoun advantage to begin the fourth.
A short shot by Duke 20 seconds into the final period gave them their first 20-point lead of the game and they would win by that margin.
Cartersville did whittle the deficit down to 12 just under the five-minute mark, but that was as much as Calhoun’s lead would shrink.
The win leaves Calhoun and Hiram as the last two unbeaten teams in the Region and puts Cartersville a game behind each at 2-1 in the league. Dalton got its first win in the 7-5A Tuesday night with a victory over Woodland, which, along with Cass, now stands 0-3.
The Calhoun girls have now won six consecutive games and own an outstanding 14-3 record overall.