This high school girls’ basketball game meant nothing in the small picture, but when the postseason begins in a couple of weeks, it could have lasting effects for both programs involved.
Bradley Central and Lakeview-Fort Oglethorpe are both top 10-ranked teams in their states, and each has lofty goals moving forward, so when the opportunity arose to come together Saturday in Georgia for a benchmark game at LFO, coaches Jason Reuter and DeWayne Watkins agreed.
Reuter’s Bearettes, however, took the drama out early with a dominating second quarter en route to a 69-41 win over LFO, handing the Lady Warriors their first loss in 19 games to start the season. Bradley (17-2) used its significant size edge and extended man-to-man defense to go from down 17-15 with less than a minute to play in the first quarter to up 35-21 at halftime.
“We are just bigger, and our inside game was strong today,” said Reuter, who has more than 300 wins at Bradley Central and led the program to its sixth Tennessee state title in 2019. “I thought we had the bigger team coming in, and it seemed they ran out of gas because of our depth during the big run in the second quarter.”
Hannah Jones scored 11 of her game-high 27 points in the second quarter. Avary Brewer, Erika Swick and Karsee Weber had 3-pointers during a game-turning 12-0 run, three of Bradley’s 10 treys in the game. On the other hand, the Lady Warriors, who usually hit 3-pointers at a dizzying pace, managed to go only 2-of-14 from long distance as the Bearettes constantly put pressure on LFO’s sharpshooters.