George Wythe girls beat Northwood

By JIM CUNNINGHAM/Staff

The George Wythe Lady Maroons survived a late rally by Northwood to defeat the Lady Panthers 40-28 in a Hogoheegee District girls basketball game played Tuesday night at GWHS.

GW led the entire game, sometimes by as much as 15 points, but the Lady Panthers took advantage of several errant passes in the second half to threaten GW’s lead. Northwood closed to within four points about midway in the fourth quarter. But the Lady Maroons closed out the game by scoring the last eight points for the victory.

George Wythe improved to 3-4 in the district and 9-10 overall. Northwood dropped to 3-4 in the district and 8-10 overall.

George Wythe Head Coach Bradley Sutphin liked the defensive effort by his team. “I challenge them before each game to hold the other team to eight points a quarter,” he said. “If we do that, we feel like we have a chance to win…I think for the most part our defensive intensity was there.”

But the coach was a little disappointed with his team’s offensive execution late in the game. “We had a chance to extend our lead, but we got real sloppy with the ball,” he said.

GW set a good offensive tone from the beginning as Kristen Atwell scored on a stickback. Then DeAnna Hedgepeth sank a layup and followed that with a steal and then received a pass inside which she converted into two points to give the Lady Maroons a 6-0 lead.

Atwell was the leading scorer for GW with 11 points and Hedgepeth scored eight.

Northwood was led by Kristin Dean with nine points.

Dean scored NHS’s first point on a free throw at the 5:29 mark and then scored from outside to cut the GW lead to 6-3.

Jordan Quinn connected for two points for GW, and it was answered by Millie Spence for NHS to make it 8-5.

The Lady Maroons closed out the first period with a free throw by Atwell and a coast-to-coast layup by Hedgepeth. Then Quinn made a steal, was fouled, and sank one-of-two attempts to put GW up 12-5.

GW had its best defensive quarter in the second by allowing Northwood just four points while ringing up 10 to take a 13-point (22-9) halftime lead.

George Wythe was able to maintain its advantage through most of the third quarter and was leading by 14 late in the period when the Lady Panthers took advantage of some wayward GW passes to convert several easy baskets. Northwood scored the last eight points of the third quarter to cut the GW lead to just eight points.

Brooke Hagen continued the trend for Northwood by making a steal and layup in the opening seconds of the fourth to cut the lead to only six.

Both teams then went through a dry spell, but when Tori Blevins hit from outside for Northwood, the GW lead was cut to only four points (32-28) with about three and a half minutes left in the game.

But the GW defense clamped down the rest of the way by not allowing a point, and the offense got buckets from Atwell, two from Kiana Ransome and one from Haley Johnson for the victory.

George Wythe is scheduled to travel to Holston on Monday.

Northwood  5 4 14 5 – 28

G. Wythe      12 10 9 9 – 40

Northwood – Brooke Hagen 2 0-2 4, Kristin Dean 3 3-5 9, Millie Spence 3 0-2 6, Tori Blevins 3 0-0 6, Heather Crawford 0 3-4 3.

George Wythe – Jordan Quinn 2 1-2 5, Carrie Lynn Wolford 2 0-0 4, DeAnna Hedgepeth 3 2-2 8, Danielle Williams 2 0-0 4, Haley Johnson 1 0-0 2, Kiana Ransome 3 0-0 6, Kristen Atwell 3 5-7 11.

(T – 1:05)