By Brandon O’Connor

Reporter

The Lady Cat basketball team had a chance to compete against a few unfamiliar foes as they faced three teams from Florida in the Vereen Christmas Shootout at Colquitt High School over Christmas break.

“I loved the experience of playing against some good teams from out of state and girls that they weren’t familiar with,” head coach Kelvin Cochran said. “We had to make adjustments on the run because we didn’t know anything about them.”

Bainbridge (8-4) defeated Choctawhatchee and Norland and lost to Gainesville to go 2-1 in the tournament.

“It was a great challenge,” Cochran said. “I thought we had a pretty good tournament. We had a chance to win all three games.”

The Choctawhatchee Indians held a three-point lead over Bainbridge at halftime before the Lady Cats battled back and turned the deficit into a three-point lead at the end of the third. Nadia Marshall was the team’s leading scorer with 14.

“We buckled down, down the stretch, made a couple plays and had a couple key stops that helped us seal the victory,” Cochran said of the win.

Against Norland, Bainbridge overcame a distinct size disadvantage to come away with a 40-41 victory.

“It was one of the bigger teams that we have played,” Cochran said. “Their guards were even big. They had size inside. They had size on the perimeter.”

The game was with under a minute left before the Vikings took a one-point lead after making 1-of-2 free throws.

“We inbounded the ball and pushed it up the court and Tytianna got the foul on the game winning shot with 1-second left n the clock,” Cochran said. “She made both free throws to win it.”

She finished the game with 13 points, five rebounds and four assists.

The Lady Cats’ were unable to defeat Gainesville in an early morning game on the last day of the tournament losing 52-48, but Cochran said that he was impressed with the way his team battled through adversity in the game. Kierra King only played the first few minutes of the first quarter before sitting the rest of the game with an illness and Roseborough fouled out with more than four minutes left in the game.

“We still had a chance to win,” he said. “It was big for us to be in that situation…we are deep in our bench and still have a chance to win.”

Cochran said that as they open region on Friday with a road game against Veterans that they will have to dig deeper and work on improving the little things. He is also looking for Marshall and Roseborough to take their game to another level during region play