By Dalton Middleton
Special to The Dispatch
In the last two games of Thursday night in the Trojan Holiday Classic, the New Hope Lady Trojans beat the Amory Lady Panthers, 52-49 and the New Hope Trojans lost to the Brandon Bulldogs, 79-62.
In the Lady Trojans’ victory, the game was truly a game of runs. New Hope started the first quarter on a 7-0 run, second quarter on a 6-0 run, and the third quarter on another 7-0 run. In all three quarters, they allowed Amory to fight back and cut the lead to a small deficit and even let the Lady Panthers take the lead going into the fourth quarter. In the fourth quarter, the Lady Trojans retook the lead and never looked back.
New Hope coach Chad Brown said the team seemed to lose focus later in the quarters and are still learning to keep their foot on the pedal in those situations.
“I think we kind of get settled too much,” Brown said. “We make a run and we settle for it, not pushing the lead more. We get too comfortable and we have to keep pressing to keep scoring. We just seem to lose our same aggression that we had at the beginning of quarters, so we need to learn to keep pushing. Our team fought to the very end though. Last year, we would have lost this game. We are finding ways to win.
Down by three points at the start of the fourth quarter, Lady Trojan Alaysha Jennings took over and scored 11 of her team-high 13 points in the quarter to lead her team to victory.
Brown was impressed with her and said she can do whatever she wants on the court whenever she believes in herself.
“She can be a special player when she has confidence,” Brown said. “She had that confidence in the fourth quarter and I told her that she had to go help the team win the game. She had four fouls in the third quarter and when she entered in the fourth, she simply took over. She has that take-over type play, and that is exactly what she did.”
In the first quarter, the Lady Trojans started off with a very balanced attack, and had four separate players score. New Hope started on a 6-0 run early but the offense quickly slowed down and the first quarter ended with the Lady Trojans leading at 8-6.
The Lady Trojans then started the second quarter on a 7-0 run, extending the lead to 15-6 before the Lady Panthers closed out the half on a good note, cutting New Hope’s lead to 19-17.
The third quarter began the same way the first and second quarters did, with New Hope starting on a big run to extend the lead. This time, it was a 7-0 lead that gave the Lady Trojans a 26-17 lead. The Lady Panthers then battled back and took the lead 32-29 at the end of the third quarter.
The fourth quarter was a back-and-forth battle between both teams, but New Hope came back from a four-point deficit to win 52-49.
In the final game of the night, the Trojans played host to the Brandon Bulldogs and played a very dominant game of basketball until the fourth quarter. After taking an early lead, the Bulldogs slowly tied the game up and continued to take the lead, eventually putting the game out of reach from the Trojans in the fourth quarter.
New Hope coach Drew McBrayer said the team just lacked execution to start the fourth quarter and could not make the shot they needed to get back into the lead when Brandon gave them easy shots.
“We kind of let a four-to-five-point lead turn into an eight-to-nine-point lead for Brandon,” McBrayer said. “We ended up chasing a little bit and could not make a big shot. I think we were down four or five points late and had two wide open threes and could not take advantage.”
Senior Terryonte Thomas led New Hope with 22 points.
Thomas said after the game that Brandon played much better on the glass than the Trojans did. He was happy that they got to play a high-caliber team like Brandon in this stretch of the season because it will make them better going down the stretch in district play and in the playoffs.
“This game is going to help us a ton,” Thomas said. “Playing against such good competition is going to help us get ready for district play soon and we are probably going to play someone in the playoffs with the same amount of size and athleticism as Brandon. It helps more that we played them over Christmas break because we can come back into district play ready and focused and not rusty like some teams will be.”
In the first quarter of the game, the Trojans started on a 6-0 run and turned it into a 20-14 lead at the start of the second quarter. The Trojans lost some momentum and were outscored in the second quarter by six points, but held on and scored just enough to keep the game tied 36-36 going into halftime.
To open up the second half, the Bulldogs took the early lead before trading shots with New Hope for a few minutes. Brandon eventually took a 59-53 lead into the fourth quarter over the Trojans.
In the fourth quarter, Brandon extended the lead and dominated on the glass, resulting in many second chance points for the Bulldogs. The Trojans were out-scored by 11 in the fourth quarter and the Brandon Bulldogs got the 79-62 victory over New Hope.
Thomas said he is going to take this loss, go home and forget about it, and get ready for a team that will be much of the same kind of play as Brandon when it faces Columbus tonight.
“We are just going to let this loss go and get ready for tomorrow,” Thomas said.
“Tomorrow is going to be a familiar team. They will be another big rebounding and tough team. We are going to need to focus on getting the ball off the glass better so we can beat one of our rivals tomorrow night.”
McBrayer said he hopes the kids learned what they needed to do better tonight and turn it positive for a huge game against Columbus tomorrow night.
“We have a big rivalry game tomorrow,” Coach McBrayer said. “Like I told the kids in the locker room, it’s a learning experience. The game, one way or another, win or lose, is a learning experience. What you take away from it at the end of the night makes you better.”
The Dispatch Editorial Board is made up of publisher Peter Imes, columnist Slim Smith, managing editor Zack Plair and senior newsroom staff.
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