Perry girls earn first win

mbrown@sunmulti.com

Jeff Winston and the Perry High girls basketball team needed

one thing Saturday at home: a win. There were some close finals, losses by

eight to Northside and seven to West Laurens.

Against the First Presbyterian Day girls at home, Winston

said the Lady Panthers came as close to four quarters of basketball as they

have so far. The result was that elusive first victory, 54-42.

Aaliyah Cheatham had 28 points and Maya Wade 19. Both are

sophomores.

“Our biggest issue has been playing a full game,” said

Winston.

The visiting Lady Vikings only had nine in the first half,

but that meant nothing to the head coach. He reminded his club during the break

that they themselves only had seven in the second-half against Warner Robins

and seven in the first half vs. Northside. In each game, he said Perry did much

better in the opposite half.

“It’s good to get the monkey off the back,” said Winston,

who said the defensive effort was great save for a couple of back-door plays

FPD executed.

“If I can ever get Maya, when she drives, to think ‘pass

first, shot second,’ she can be one of the better point guards in the region,”

said Winston. “She’s getting there. The first game she had eight turnovers, and

in the last three I’m not sure she’s had eight combined.”

Cheatham, according to Winston, is one of those players who

can carry a team to victory and score in a variety of ways inside and outside.

He said Cheatham and Moore have played together a long time, and Moore knows

when to feed her teammate when she is hot. Conversely, he said Cheatham does

the right thing getting the ball to Moore when defenses surround her.

“She can shoot, drive, dribble,” said Winston. “(Saturday)

was the first zone we’ve seen all year defensively. Last year we struggled

against the zone. She’s a heck of a scorer. She’s going to take (the 3).”

And Cheatham finally connected at 5:01 to end a scoreless deadlock.

Curshala Riley, a forward, is the only senior starter, and she had a steal and

an assist to Cheatham from Alexis Ervin’s takeaway. The Lady Vikings were

finally on the board at 1:20.

Riley and Ervin each had two steals in the quarter that

ended 5-2.

Wade connected from 3 on a pass out of the post from Keeley

Winston, then she ran the floor to score from her long defensive board, then –

in a one-pass possession – she fired the ball inside to Cheatham, then she

finished off a takeaway, then Perry maintained possession as Wade missed the

free-throw. Through a lot of moves with the ball, Wade canned a trey.

A freshman, Tayoshi Shannett pulled down three offensive

boards in one last-minute possession. Cheatham nailed one more 3, and the Lady

Panthers led 27-9 at the half.

FPD opened the second half on a 9-2 run with penetration and

second-chance scoring. Cheatham ended Perry’s dry spell, but the lead was down

to 11, 31-20, at 3:40. Cheatham then twice with two steals in her team’s 8-0

run. In the last second, Wade’s 3-ball had the margin to 20, 44-24.

Shannett scored from a steal in the fourth. The visitors

were 9-of-12 at the line to make the final deficit 12.

“Shannett played a heck of a game defensively on their best

player,” said Winston. “Keeley and Courtney (Winston) do as good a job as any

as far as help defense, recovering and blocking out. (Riley), I tell her, ‘You

need to get a rebound.’ She had 15 against West Laurens. She goes after the

ball hard.”

Those lulls Saturday kept the coach from saying this was a

complete effort. He said it’s still a work in progress in a long season as he

works in teaching fundamentals with preparing for specific opponents.

“If I can just get them to compete in practice and in games,”

said Winston. “We’ve watched (the Perry boys) practice. I told them when the

boys play three games a week, they literally play six games a week because

their practices are as intense as anything I’ve ever seen.”

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