‘Championships don’t come every day’: Defensive intensity, career-highs and good vibes carry Demonettes through demolition of Wayne County and Region 1-4A championship

WARNER ROBINS — In the wise words shared by Demonettes head coach Rebecca Ivory, championships don’t come every day.

There are many privileged programs out there with an established culture and a wealth of talent that allows them to see many even within one high school student’s four years.

But for many, they never see one. Not even an appearance in the big game.

Ivory learned to appreciate them when they come from a young age, and has appreciated the many as a coach, since.

“Each championship to me is special. It’s a different group of girls, it’s a different road to get where we are,” Ivory said. “We started the season with different goals this year, smaller goals…I told them yesterday and I told them today I remember being on a nine and ten-year-old team, we won a championship. At the banquet [my coach said] championships don’t come every day. So you embrace them whether [it’s recreation] ball, middle school, high school, college.”

Friday’s 60-30 final against Wayne County awarded Ivory and the Demonettes their fourth in her tenure, just three years removed from the end of a three-peat. Some people might go without winning a championship, but they certainly aren’t members of her program.

“Some people play their whole lives and never win a championship. I think they embraced that today,” She continued. “At halftime one of them said, ‘Coach said everybody don’t win a championship every day, we gotta go get it…’ I played and never won a high school region championship myself. So to come back here and bring four home is amazing.”

Despite what the final score says, the Lady Yellow Jackets actually punched first, and hard.

It felt like Wayne County came out more prepared for the stage and they quickly took a 9-2 lead.

But if you’ve seen Warner Robins you know they don’t take turbulence laying down.

From 3:44 in the first quarter to halftime they outscored the Lady Yellow Jackets 22-5. The Demonettes trailed 9-7 after the first, but the first play of the second quarter was a Kennedy Bradshaw three-pointer for the lead, her first of five during her 27-point night, tied for her career high at Warner Robins. They never trailed again after that.

“To go from no points Wednesday to 27 today, it just shows her ability to shoot the ball,” Ivory said. “We had a discussion yesterday and we just talked about her confidence, and she got it back. Kennedy is a true ball player, she’s got all kind of fight. She probably has the most championship experience on the team. She came to play today.”

Her offensive boost complemented a suffocating defensive effort, if you wanted to understate how good the Demonettes were on that end.

Warner Robins has only won five games by single digits this season, and in 13 of those games they held their opponents to under 35 points.

They forced multiple 10-second violations in the third quarter and Wayne County just could not move on offense. With each turnover, charge or foul drawn, the Demonettes both on the court and the bench exploded.

Janelle Turner is usually the most animated of the group, but everybody got in on the emotional roars this time.

Ivory was proud of what she saw on Friday.

“I’m proud of them for listening. Taking film serious, listening to the adjustments that we had to make. Talking defensively,” Ivory said. “Laila Howard-Haney…Syriah Mace, they talk the most defensively. Laila just stepped up big time defensively for us today. She does a lot of the little things that nobody sees…For them to just cohesively fight defensively is amazing. I told them offense don’t win ball games, defense wins ball games all day.”

When there were only a few minutes left, chants from the Warner Robins boys’ and Ware County girls’ section of the bleachers started chanting, “We want Kaelyn!”

This was in reference to freshman Kaelyn Brooks, daughter of assistant boys coach Antwan Brooks. While not immediately submitting to the chants, with two minutes left Ivory emptied the bench with Kaelyn Brooks included, and her entry to the floor drew cheers from the crowd.

Shortly after the buzzer sounded the Demonettes flooded the court in celebration of their first region championship in three years.

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Warner Robins will host the first round of the playoffs, one of two Houston County teams to do so this season.