WEEKEND HOOPS: Reverse splits in Dublin homestand; East Laurens sweeps rematches with West

In a high school basketball game, it’s rare to see several possessions in a row go off exactly how you drew them up, much less the last few that close out a game with the lead. 

For Dublin’s girls basketball team, those went precisely to plan Friday night as the Lady Irish came up with the plays they needed to put away Dodge County in a big region win, 43-42. 

“It was just some last-second plays that I drew up,” said Dublin head coach Michelle Mitchell. “I told them to execute it, take care of the ball and run the shot clock down, and that’s what we did.” 

The tight game would hinge on the home team’s final four or five possessions, as Dublin pulled back in front after a four-point run by the Squaws eliminated the last bit of a lead it had held for most of the night. 

Dodge equalized the score at 38 with a pair of Paige Ingram free throws with 2:25 left. 

The Lady Irish survived a turnover on the ensuing inbound, and came back down to regain the lead on a mid-range jump shot by Khalil Maddox. 

They got a quick stop, and with the luxury of two timeouts, convened on the sidelines to plan out both the next two possessions, on which Keasia Jackson, Kylee Spikes and ultimately Zoey Bell would combine to avoid a turnover, and dribble the clock down to just inside 40 seconds, at which point Bell split a pair of free throws to make it a 41-38 lead. 

The Squaws answered on the other end with an A’Marya Mann putback cut the difference back to one with 19 to play.  

But Dublin once again took advantage of a timeout, after advancing the ball halfway, and some great work by Mitchell on the dry-erase clipboard. 

Coming back from out of bounds, Bell set a screen to free up Maddox for a catch and run to the basket. Her up-and-under move took care of a lone Dodge defender in Camille Orange, and a successful layup had the Lady Irish back on top by three. 

Jackson stole the return inbound pass for good measure, but nothing came of her trip to the line. The Squaws’ Kamiya Smith won a race to the other basket to lay one in and once again get the visitors within a point, but only .1 seconds remained as their head coach Casandra Hamilton called time. 

Dublin’s streak of perfect end-game execution continued as Jackson – needing to merely rule out the remote chance of a Dodge tip on the play-in pass – hurled it over half court to get rid of the remaining time. 

The satisfaction on the face of Mitchell, and those along the Lady Irish bench, was unmistakable as each of the final looks played out seamlessly to seal a senior-night win that has some fairly significant seeding implications for the upcoming region tournament. 

With two games to go, there’s now a healthy possibility that the Dublin girls (currently in seventh   with a record of 11-12 overall, and 5-6 region 2-High A) could work their way into the top six, and thereby skip the earliest round of next week’s tournament where the need for a third win to reach the weekend semifinals makes chances of a potential run at a playoff spot much more remote. 

Despite some fluctuations in confidence and success for this young team over an up-and-down season, those chances and a sense of late-season “momentum” are starting to feel a lot more real around the Lady Irish program as things have come together over the last handful of games. 

And Mitchell saw a lot of what they’ve been working on to bring their play up to that level pay off in Friday’s last few moments. 

“(We’re) coming into practice focused, getting shots up and really locking in our defense,” she said. “We’re trying to finish strong and get ready for (the region tournament) and the state playoffs.” 

Maddox led Dublin in scoring with 17 points. Jackson and Jordan Renfroe added about a dozen rebounds apiece and Jamya Tinsley contributed six blocked shots to the team effort. 

Though their fortunes would improve in a non-region home game the following afternoon, the Dublin boys (4-18, 0-11 region) struggled in Friday’s second game as their fruitless search for a league win continued in a 57-31 loss. 

It was a puzzling night on the offensive end, where 3-pointers were falling at double the rate (the Irish were 6-of-13 from deep, with Jaydon McRae sinking four for all of his team-leading 12 points) of 2s that were hard to come by (at a rate of only 3-for-13). 

And that only limited success was mostly concentrated to the fourth quarter, which contained Dublin’s only double-digit set of points. 

The Irish had only four in the first, and six each in the second and third, getting doubled up in all three as Dodge grew its lead up to 16 by the half, and 29 through three frames. 

Dublin was also out-rebounded 38-18. 

Kyler Johnson scored 15 points, and J.T. Northcutt added 10, to lead the way for the Indians. 

ECI 54, Dublin girls 53

Down 53-52, the Lady Dogs broke pressure and went the length of the court in the final five seconds and change to steal a second-straight win from Dublin in overtime. 

Senaria Hillman located Tatiana Smith on the left wing with a spinning pass for the winning 3-pointer that swished just after the buzzer. 

Dublin boys 75, ECI 45

Kam Stanley (17), JaKarian Jones (13) and QuanTavis Lovett (13) had the top totals out of 12 Irish players who got in on the productive night in a rebound win to salvage Saturday’s split. 

West Laurens girls 37, Richmond Academy 32

The Lady Raiders averaged a lead of roughly 10 through the five-minute mark of the fourth quarter, when ARC made its move and mounted a late threat with a 9-2 run to make it a four-point game with just under two minutes remaining. 

West Laurens only about broke even the rest of the way, but came up with single free throws on consecutive trips by Maddie Ridgway (who led the squad with 14 points) and Brooklyn Jackson, along with a couple of stops, to seal out the win. 

ARC 44, West Laurens boys 40

The Raiders, who had only three to answer ARC’s 15 in the first six minutes of action, overcame their really slow start with some lockdown defense in the second and third quarters. 

They’d outscore the Muskies by four in each, then start the fourth with eight unanswered to take a momentary lead before the home team awoke from its nearly seven-minute offensive drought. 

Regrettably, that’s when one for the visitors kicked in, and West Laurens was held to just one more basket in the last four minutes, and ARC would score eight of the last 10 to finish in front. 

East Laurens girls 57, West Laurens 23

The Lady Falcons, led by Zahmaria Robinson’s 18 points, nine rebounds and four steals, held a pretty decisive upper hand the whole way, but turned the corner as they scored 16 to double their point total, and gave up only three to open a 21-point halftime lead, in the dominant second quarter. 

Alasia Wiggins added 12 and Garyunna Mitchell eight to the scoring count for East Laurens, which improved to 20-3 (10-1 region 2-High A). Mitchell and Deanna Lowther had eight each of the team’s 40 boards. 

Ridgway paced the Lady Raiders (12-11, 9-6 region 4-AAA)  in a second-straight outing with 11 points. 

East Laurens boys 65, West Laurens 45

The teams traded some runs, but the Falcons’, whose first was a 7-0 streak from the opening tip, were larger and more frequent. 

East Laurens, converting at its usual efficiency from close to the basket and without much aid from the 3-ball (Zion Dixon had the only successful attempt of the team’s seven from outside), would outscore the Raiders by exactly five in every quarter. 

Dixon had 15 points and six rebounds, Kelvion King scored 10 and Major Floyd grabbed seven rebounds to lead the way for the Black and Gold, which is now 18-5 (8-3 region). 

Next…

All three local teams play their home finales Tuesday night, as Dublin battles Bleckley County, East Laurens takes on Central Macon (its girls in need of a win of two points or greater to lock up rights to host the final two rounds of next week’s region tournament) and West Laurens completes the regular season against top-rated squads out of Augusta’s Cross Creek.