The Bainbridge Bearcats basketball team beat Cairo on Friday, Jan. 13, and lost to Warner Robins on Saturday, Jan. 14. It was a rough road trip weekend, but coming out with one win and one loss is not the worst-case scenario for the Bearcats.

Coming in to the game against Cairo, the Bearcats were in need of a good win.  Cairo was their chance at getting that win.

The Bearcats came out on fire in the first and second quarters. At halftime, the score was 39-14 in favor of Bainbridge.

“We played a really good first half, the guys executed well on offense and we got a couple of fast break points and defense was good in the first half,” said Head Coach Terry Smith.

The second half was a little different for the Bearcats. Cairo came out hot in the third quarter and outscored the Bearcats 20-9 and then rode that momentum to the fourth quarter and outscored the Bearcats 18-5. It wasn’t enough though, the Bearcats had built up a big enough lead in the first half to be able to weather the storm of the second half and finish with a final score of 63-52.

Milton Gayle and Maleke Lurry led Bainbridge in scoring, putting up 14 points each.

After winning the first of two weekend games, Bainbridge headed to Warner Robins with high hopes of pulling off the upset. The game was an even march, but Bainbridge dug themselves in a hole in the first quarter that they couldn’t pull themselves out of. Warner Robins outscored Bainbridge 17-9 in the first, which set up a scenario where Bainbridge was playing catch up against a good team for the rest of the game.

The lopsided first quarter hurt, but what truly killed Bainbridge’s chance of winning was turning the ball over a jaw dropping 26 times. Then, if that wasn’t enough, Bainbridge also missed 16 layups.

“With a team like Warner Robins, the best team in our region, we hung in their with those guys and wound up losing by 8 points,” said Coach Smith. “But the 26 turnovers and 16 missed layups, you can’t win like that.”

Overall, this weekend gave Bainbridge a deserved win, but also gave them an image of what leads to their downfall. Giving teams extra possessions minimizes a teams chance of success, so the Bearcats will need to improve there if they want to succeed, but according to Coach Smith, things seem to be heading in the right direction.

“It’s taking us some time but I think were heading in the right direction. We just have to limit our turnovers, that’s been killing us all season,” said Coach Smith.