DECATUR — Newton County girls basketball coach Cory Cleveland was looking forward to Tuesday night’s contest with Philadelphia. 

Earlier this season, the Lady Tornadoes beat the Lady Cougars 54-43 in Philadelphia.

The Lady Cougars returned the favor on Tuesday night as they overcame an early deficit and used a 13-2 run in the third period to take a 57-52 win over the Lady Tornadoes.

The Lady Cougars improve to 11-2 on the season while Philadelphia falls to 9-4.

For Cleveland and the Lady Cougars, it was a big win entering the Christmas holidays.

“The girls had an agenda coming into tonight,” Cleveland said. “They wanted to prove that we were a better team than we showed at their place. You have to hand it to Philadelphia, they are a scrappy bunch and are only going to get better. I was real proud of our girls and they way they handled the aggression. They didn’t lose their composure and I’m very pleased with that.”

The Lady Tornadoes took an early advantage as they used a 9-2 run to end the first period and take a 15-10 lead at the end of the first. The Lady Tornadoes took their biggest lead of the contest at the 3:49 mark in the second period as they led 24-18 on an old-fashioned three-point play by Nia Luckett. But that’s when the Lady Cougars started to come alive on the offensive end. A 3-pointer by Sharandon Isom ignited a 10-0 run by the Lady Cougars to end the half as the Lady Cougars took a 28-24 lead into the half.

The third period was more of the same for the Lady Cougars as they went on a 13-2 run to begin the half and stretch the lead out to 41-26 behind six points from Yasmine Broach and five from Isom.

“We rely on our pressure defense to create baskets for us,” Philadelphia coach Jason Broom said. “I thought they did a good job of handling our pressure tonight. They went into that zone and we were settling for outside shots and we just can’t play like that.”

After building that 15-point lead, Philadelphia scored the last two points of the third period as Newton County led 41-31 going into the fourth.

Philadelphia got as close as five points in the fourth but the Lady Cougars held on for the win.

Isom led the Lady Cougars with 17 points while Broach had 11 points. Cassie Denson and Chelsea Giles each chipped in nine points. Luckett led Philadelphia with 20 points while Tkasmin Colston had eight points.

 

NEWTON COUNTY 60,

PHILADELPHIA BOYS 49

 

The Cougars overcame a sluggish first half as they took an 11-point win over the Tornadoes.

The game was back and forth in the first half as each team scored 10 points in the first half and the Cougars took a 22-21 lead into the half.

I was worried about us being a little leg weary, that was our sixth game in eight days,” Newton County coach Steve Harbour said. “We didn’t make some shots early that we usually make and we were a step slow on defense. They are good enough to beat you and big and physical. We talked about it at half, about stepping up and doing whatever it took to win the game.”

But the Cougars got cooking in the second half as Jaylin Nicholson hit three 3-pointers and scored 11 points in the period as the Cougars outscored Philadelphia 23-14 to take a 45-35 lead into the fourth period. The Cougars held serve in the fourth period, outscoring the Tornadoes 15-14 to take the win.

Nicholson led County with 16 points while Yunish Billy and Ethan McMullan each had 11 points apiece and K.D. Hunt chipped in 10 points. Stetson Moore led Philadelphia with a game-high 31 points.