Turnovers snowball in Lady Bears’ 61-22 loss to Lee County

WARNER ROBINS — Houston County (0-20, 0-8 Region 2-5A) started Tuesday’s contest against Lee County (16-7, 7-1 Region) looking like they were ready for a competitive game, and hopefully their first win.

But soon their turnovers went from troublesome to overwhelming, and the Lady Bears lost in a lopsided 61-22 final.

Felicity Curtis slipped a pass through the middle of the Lady Trojans’ defense to a cutting Olivia Buffone for the first score of the game.

They navigated the press fairly well in the opening minutes. Everyone was positioned more or less where they were supposed to be, and they zipped the ball away from pressure enough to advance it past half court.

There were still some unsavory turnovers, but they appeared ready to remain competitive and give Lee County their trips’ worth.

It started to snowball after Taliyah Porter’s fast break layup put the Lady Trojans ahead by 10 with 2:33 to go in the first quarter.

The number of errors steadily increased, and it didn’t take long for Lee County to start taking those giveaways into transition for easy scores.

Mishca Jones nailed a mid-range jumper before the first quarter buzzer to bring HoCo within single digits again, but their first turnover in the second quarter went the length of the floor for two points.

The Lady Bears scored one point in the second period largely because of the flurry of takeaways soon to come.

It started with the Lady Trojans picking off passes easily within their reach or jumping the occasional passing lane. But as the deficit mounted the ball moved quicker and the time to make the correct reads and decisions sharply fell.

Lee County was free to be more aggressive. They blitzed ball handlers before they had a chance to breathe and easily took it the other way for an easy score.

The Lady Bears’ halftime deficit was 27, triple as much as it was eight minutes before.

The highlight of their night was a 7-2 run in the third quarter on which they scored on three straight possessions.

Trinity Brown got the first bucket to go to put HoCo in double digits with 4:01 to go until the final period. Sameena Khan’s three-pointer fell through the next on the next possession and Jada Stokes received a pass from the corner, turned and put the ball through to cap the run.

They still trailed 47-16 after that, and by the start of the fourth the 49-16 margin was too much to overcome.

UP NEXT

HoCo’s last non-region game of the season is on Thursday, Jan. 29 at 5 p.m. against West Laurens.

Lee County will take the rest of the week off from games before coming back up to Warner Robins to face Northside on Tuesday, Feb. 3 at 6 p.m.