Maurice Dixon
@WriturRece | mdixon27@gmail.com
SUWANEE (GA) – Norcross junior Myra Strickland maximized her opportunities from 3 and her last shot from deep helped close the door against Buford.
Strickland also scored a game-high 18 points, including six-pointers, as the Lady Blue Devils outlasted the Lady Wolves 62-58 on Martin Luther King Jr. Day during the Blue Collar Basketball MLK Showcase at Peachtree Ridge High.
“Myra is actually sicker than a dog right now and she fought through it,” Norcross coach Angie Hembree said. “She told herself she was going to put it away. She had 32 minutes to play and she was going to put it all out on the floor so I’m really proud of her for battling through that. She hit some really big shots.”
After seeing a nine-point, second-half lead diminish into a 56-55 deficit late in the fourth quarter, Strickland found just enough daylight behind the arc and drilled the shot for a 58-56 score with 1:13 left.
“We rep that a lot in practice even with a hand in their face to make sure they can practice on high intensity so they show it in the game and it really helped us,” Hembree said.
Norcross (18-3) never lost the lead from then on but did give Buford (15-3) another chance to tie when Strickland fouled Audrey Weiner during a 3-point attempt. But Weiner only made one of the foul shots with 43 seconds to go.
During the free-throw shooting contest that emerged, Yamani Paul (17 points, six rebounds) and Morgan Robinson (16 points) combined to net three shots from the stripe to seal the win.
Devyn Wilson (eight points) cleaned the glass for the Lady Blue Devils, pulling down 15 rebounds.
However, the Lady Blue Devils left more than a handful of points at the foul line due to a 22-of-41 shooting performance.
Buford did just a little more with less, netting 16 of 27 attempts, while being led in scoring by Kya Styles (14 points) and Tory Ozment (12).