GHSA PLAYOFF ROUNDUP: Three local teams teams moving on to second round

Three of Laurens County’s five basketball teams in GHSA state tournament action this past Tuesday and Wednesday picked up wins to roll into the second round.

East Laurens’ girls and boys, along with Dublin’s boys, defended their home courts to advance as one of 16 winners in their respective brackets, while Dublin and West Laurens girls were eliminated with road losses.

Here’s how each of the games played out…

East Laurens girls 65, Dade Co. 38 

The Wolverines’ full-court pressure was disruptive, but hardly airtight, and only caused enough issues to delay an East Laurens breakaway until the third quarter when the Lady Falcons finally began to maintain some offensive rhythm. 

For Dade County, it didn’t seem the points needed to keep up were in the cards, though a 10-point second quarter did get its early deficit back to a single possession a handful of times before Jameria Bing scored five, and Deanna Lowther two on a 7-0 Eastside run to finish it out, and take a 25-15 lead into the half. 

East Laurens led the scoring 18-9 in the third and 22-14 in the fourth to pull away. 

Bing, with 20 points and all three of the team’s triples, Deanna Lowther, chipping in 19, and Garyunna Mitchell, adding 12, made up a trio of Lady Falcons in double figures. Lowther also doubled up in rebounds, with 16, tailled five steals and blocked two shots. Mitchell grabbed nine boards and Bing banked five steals.

East (24-4, 13-2 region 2-High A) will have No. 14 Brantley County (a 47-25 winner over Northeast Macon) at home in its second-round matchup Friday. 

Bacon Co. 47, Dublin 43

The second-half gap stayed just slightly out of reach for the Lady Irish, despite their efforts to reduce it to four points early in both the last two quarters and just before the final buzzer. 

They couldn’t get Bacon County off serve after falling several baskets off the pace during a mid-first half lull, over a six-minute stretch between the first and second quarters that the Raiders led 10-2. They’d go on to maintain their seven-point edge at the half all the way through a 10-apiece third quarter. 

Zoey Bell had 13 points, including three 3-pointers, and Khalil Maddox added a double-double, with 11 points and rebounds, to keep Dublin (13-16, 7-9 region 2-High A) in the exciting ballgame all the way to the end. 

Luella 64, West Laurens 14 

The Lady Raiders scored six to jump out to a very early four-point lead, but would get stuck after reaching eight, shortly after a roughly even first quarter, as Luella rattled off about 20 in a five-minute stretch of the second to develop a huge halftime lead. 

The Lions’ open-court speed and length around the basket got West Laurens (13-15, 10-9 region 4-AAA) worn down as their advantage grew to over 40 by the end of the third quarter.

Dublin 63, Jasper Co. 57 

Most of the trends that played into last week’s unexpected region tournament run for the Irish continued as they returned to the Jaroy Stuckey Court Wednesday night and proved their recent postseason upswing to be no fluke in another confident victory. 

In a battle where rebounds and turnovers were mostly a dead heat, Dublin simply did a better job of putting the ball in the basket over four quarters, converting over 40 percent of its shots from both the field and 3, and also missing only two of 10 free throws. 

The long-distance efficiency of multiple players who combined to go 9-of-21 from 3-point range was critical in outlasting a second-half rally by the Hurricanes, who started slow (and seemed to be thrown off by the Irish gym’s unconventional sight lines as they missed at least six routine layups), but would work their way from a 12-point halftime gap to within two of the lead by early in the fourth quarter. 

That’s when a sequence of clutch triples from Jaydon McRae, Chris Dixon and Ar’Dreakius Taylor provided the extra bit of thrust needed to for the Irish to shake the pursuit down the home stretch. 

Jasper County, whose Jamarkus Thomas, Kellynd Porter, Ramiret Davis Jr. and Dereon Pennamon heated up when it mattered for key baskets in the last five minutes, never went away. But the Canes did run out of time after allowing the Irish, who were up by five, to run the clock inside 15 seconds before they decided to foul, and Dixon added the game’s final point at the free throw line. 

He and Taylor combined for 16 points each. Ja’Karian Jones had 15 and six rebounds. Kam Stanley added seven points and seven boards. 

 Quan Lovett finished with 14 of Dublin’s 32 re’s. 

The Irish (9-21, 4-14 region 2-High A) will play No. 6 seed Putnam County in Eatonton Saturday at 5 p.m. 

East Laurens 74, Bremen 51 

The Falcons were attacking the basket and defending hard, and had Bremen pretty well out-muscled in most areas of this matchup, though the Blue Devils were able to scrap their way back to within a few possessions at multiple points to keep it respectable before getting dispelled completely in the second half. 

Neither of the first two quarters got off to a great start for the visitors, who trailed by as much as eight in the first and then by 15 midway through the second, but by the end of each, managed to break just four points below even to trail by eight at the half. 

That number shrunk to six with a quick basket to open the third, but Bremen would be outscored 16-5 the rest of the period as East Laurens (21-6, 10-4 region 2-High A) continued to press the tempo, force turnovers and slash through a 2-3 zone defense that would morph into a modified man-to-man, then a full-court press by the end, with few answers for Falcon shooters who were converting attempts from the field at over 50 percent. 

Zion Dixon and Major Floyd scored 14 to lead the them offensively, and both were followed closely by Skyler Snead, who added 13. 

Braylon Makaya (with two of the team’s three 3-pointers) and Jeremiah Rozier had eight apiece. Of East’s 35 rebounds, Dixon had eight, and Floyd six. 

The Falcons also shared the ball well, with 22 assists spread out between seven players. Floyd had seven, Rozier five and Snead four. 

East Laurens will travel to face No. 4 seed Southwest Macon at 5 or 6 p.m. Saturday in the second round. It will be a rematch of a game they lost to the Patriots 70-59 loss during the regular season.