“A true family”: Janelle Turner shows what Demonette culture is all about in win over Veterans

The Warner Robins Demonettes won their 10th straight game on Wednesday to keep their undefeated streak alive.

The four-point win was one of their closest scores to date, with only a two-point win against Tift County having a slimmer margin.

It really was anyone’s game in the final minutes. Warner Robins couldn’t buy a shot at the basket and Veterans couldn’t hit the three-point looks they generated. Both crowds were into the game and momentum was one play away from being in either team’s favor.

The difference? Janelle Turner.

Turner has anchored the Demonettes’ defense for years and brings a kind of “junkyard dog” style of play that has made Warner Robins such a fierce opponent.

She was the only player on her team in double digits with 14 points, and she was the only one able to hit shots consistently.

Six of those points came in the fourth quarter as she kept her head down and drove to the rim in hopes of getting a shot off or drawing contact.

“That’s Janelle Turner. If I asked her to run through that brick wall she’s going to run through that brick wall,” Demonettes head coach Rebecca Ivory said. “She does and our team follows. She can get them back on track and get them to follow…She’s big for us defensively and her offensive game has really improved the last two years.”

Turner exudes what it means to be a Demonette and to play for the letters on her chest. In the last 13 months Warner Robins has won 35 games and lost two — and those were both playoff games.

“Trust in God and the process. Believing in themselves but also believing in myself,” Ivory said through teary eyes on what it’s taken to sustain success. “The first two years I took over I was 28-26. Those first two years I didn’t know where we were gonna go with that. My dad took me back to the drawing board and he said, ‘God put you in this position for a reason. You can stand up and coach or walk away from it.’”

“That was the turning point,” she continued. “It just takes believing every day. It’s a lot of stuff I do outside of the court for the girls. There’s a lot of things they do for me. It’s a true family atmosphere, a true family bond. You come to the gym you see my sister, my brother-in-law, my husband, my mother and my father. I think that’s what it takes. It’s building those relationships, that culture.”

Doing it in the place you grew up makes it even more special.

“Being back home, be willing to fight here where it all started. Where I started, I was a little girl,” Ivory said. “I knew I was gonna be a Demonette. Just to coach this, that’s where it takes me it goes back to those days when I was three or four years old jumping up in the stands. I remember that, so when I see little girls doing that, that was me. I always say play for her. I’m coaching for that little girl that I used to be in the stands.”