The Bainbridge Lady Cats basketball team continued their hot streak over the weekend beating rival Cairo on Friday, Jan. 13, and undefeated Warner Robins on Saturday, Jan. 14. The girls had a busy weekend, traveling to both games, but came out on the other side of the gauntlet with a better record and two hard fought wins.

The game against Cairo was a close one and was tied at the end of regulation. The Lady Cats won the game in overtime 59-56.

Despite having a better record, the Lady Cats were in a dogfight from the start. Cairo jumped out to a lead in the first half 28-24, but Bainbridge was able to mount a comeback in the third quarter to set them up for a fourth quarter that would seal the game. It didn’t happen that way though.

Cairo countered Bainbridge’s third quarter push with an impressive 17 point fourth quarter. Bainbridge was down by four with less than 10 seconds left on the clock. Nadia Marshall stole the ball and went up for a layup and was fouled. The foul was ruled intentional, and she made both the free throws. The Lady Cats then set up for an inbounds play, Kiarra King found Marshall on a cut to the basket and Marshall capitalized, tying the game and sending it to overtime.

Marshall led all scorers with 31 points. While Marshall’s scoreline is impressive enough, the Lady Cats had an impressive effort off the bench which saw seven other girls score.

“We always try to pride our self on being well-balanced. A lot of times teams are going to key in on Nadia so we will have to have other girls step in and play well to take that pressure off of her,” said Head Coach Kelvin Cochran. “I thought they did a good job moving the ball and a couple of girls made some plays and that’ll help out moving forward also.”

Bainbridge hardly had time to celebrate. The next day they got on a bus and drove three-hours to Warner Robins, who sat at 15-0 on the season and ranked second in the state.

“The biggest thing going into the game was to just go in there and compete. Just let them know that it wont be a cakewalk. Let them know that we can play with them,” said Coach Cochran.

Bainbridge was able to do just that, but it didn’t happen from the start. Bainbridge came out shooting well, but foul trouble benched one of the top three scorers and ball handlers, Tytianna Roseborough, in the first quarter. King also got in foul trouble in the second quarter causing Coach Cochran to look to the bench. Going into halftime, Warner Robins was up by 9 points.

The second half was when Bainbridge started to turn the game around.

“We kept battling with them and kept playing with them and in the third quarter we cut it down to 35-32 going into the fourth quarter. In the fourth you could just feel the momentum start to shift to us,” said Coach Cochran. “We were down by one 40-39 with about a minute to go, Tytianna hit a three to put us up by two and we didn’t look back from there.”

The Lady Cats improve to 12-4 and 2-0 in the region. Their next game is at home against Thomas County Central at 6:00 p.m.