Lake girls coach Maurice Bowie started the season with a young basketball team and was determined to get them more experience this season, sending in players in waves of five.
The Lady Hornets continued their strong play last week with a pair of wins in the Class 2A playoffs as they beat Pisgah 64-30 on Monday and Loyd Star 47-29 on Friday night.
“We are still a young basketball team,” Bowie said.”I thought we played a lot of kids early, playing five in and five out and got a lot of experience early in the season. We still have a lot of 10th and 11th graders out there. I think the experience will be worth it down the stretch. We had one go down with an ACL injury and I didn’t think we missed a beat.”
Lake will host Newton on Friday night at 6 p.m., facing the Lady Tigers for the third time this season after sweeping them in the regular season.
Despite take a pair of double-digit wins over the Lady Tigers, Bowie knows his team is in for a battle on Friday night.
“It’s deftly going to be tough,” Bowie said. “We know they are going to bring a big crowd and they have all of that tradition. It’s tough to beat a team three times in a season. These are still high school kids audits tough to get them up to beat a team they have already beaten two times.. I’m going to work on keeping them focused. It’s turned into a good rivalry game and when you play rivalry games, you can throw records out the window.”
While Lake has take a pair of wins over Newton this season, Bowie said the Lady Tigers have an advantage coming into the game.
“I think Newton has the advantage in this situation,” Bowie said. “The last time we won a state championship was 2001, before any of these kids were born. Newton won it three years ago and Zia Shields was on that team. They went to the Coliseum last year and know what it’s like to be there. We have never been there and never even sniffed going. I think its going to be a tight game for sure. We just have to be humble and make sure we are ready to go.”
Lake girls 64, Pisgah 30
The Lady Hornets came off of their Division 5-2A championship with a blowout win over the Lady Dragons on Monday.
Lake started fast as they outscored Pisgah 21-7 in the first and 12-3 in the second to lead 33-10 at the half. Lake continued to extend its lead in the second half, outscoring Pisgah 17-11 in the third and 14-9 in the fourth.
Kalaiuna Jones had her best game of the season, leading the Lady Hornets with 21 points while Lyric Lay had 10 points. Emonti Earnest, Laneisha Palm and Tra’Shaylah Wilson each had five points apiece.
Lake girls 47, Loyd Star 29
The Lady Hornets used a stifling defense to advance in the Class 2A playoffs on Friday night.
Lake outscored Loyd Star in each of the first three period as they led 11-5 at the end of the first. Lake then outscored Loyd Star 12-4 in the second to lead 23-9 at the half. Lake extended the lead in the fourth, outscoring Loyd Star 12-8 to lead 35-17 going to the fourth, where each team scored 12 points.
Laneisha Palm led Lake with 15 points while TraShaylah Wilson had 10 points and T’Lea Hunt chipped in six points.
