
The Newberry girls basketball team entered Monday night’s home game against Bradford (Starke) riding an eight-game winning streak and a chance to sweep the visiting Tornadoes.
So that’s why Newberry coach Dameon Hughes had a message for his team early.
“I told my team at the beginning of the game I said, ‘listen, it’s hard to beat a team twice,’ sometimes a team comes back the second time and they do different things,’” he said.
His team responded as the Lady Panthers defeated the visiting Tornadoes, 65-52, in a 3A-District 3 game.
In the first meeting on Jan. 17, Newberry used a 13-2 fourth-quarter run to beat Bradford in Starke, 56-46, so Hughes told his team they had to play their “A” game.
Newberry (14-4) took an early 6-0 lead on a couple of baskets by junior Jada Brown (19 points) and never trailed in the game.
They pushed the lead to double digits at 22-11 on a jumper by senior Sarah Beaulieu (11 points)
However, Newberry only led 26-20 at the half after Bradford (12-6) closed the second quarter on a 9-4 run.
“At halftime, I felt like we were losing that game,” Hughes said. “We weren’t playing Newberry basketball. Like they always do they came in, they turned that thing around and they started playing. We started clicking and things started happening like it should be.”
A floater in the lane by Brown gave Newberry a 36-24 lead near the start of a 16-4 run.
Junior point guard Brandy Whitfield (game-high 24 points) hit a left-wing 3-pointer for a 43-26 advantage, followed by a bucket by Beaulieu, and an and-one by Brown for a 48-28 lead with 1:12 to play in the third quarter.
“She’s (Brown) the X-factor,” Hughes said. “This girl has been here for two years now, and nobody seems to think about her. She’s a player that can do everything. She can play at point guard, she can play on the wing, she can play the four, she can play center. That’s why I call her the X-factor because she can do everything.”
Despite scoring 20 points in the fourth quarter the Tornadoes would only get as close as 11 on a couple of baskets by senior Cherish Bing with less than a minute to play.
Bradford junior Ar’Nayshia Griffin led Bradford with 20 points, followed by senior Nichelle Brown with 16.
The Tornadoes will play their regular-season finale at 6 p.m. on Tuesday at home against Rural No. 2 Williston.
The game against Bradford marked the first of four games this week for Newberry to close out the regular season.
Newberry will host Buchholz (Wed.), P.K. Yonge (Thursday) and GHS (Friday) this week, followed by the district tournament next week.
The Panthers will likely be the No. 1 seed in next week’s district tournament and would host all of its district contests.
Newberry 84, Bradford 49 (BOYS) – The boys team stayed unbeaten with an easy 84-49 win against visiting Bradford in a Class 3A-District 3 battle of the league leaders.
The Panthers (19-0) built a 43-24 lead at the half and were never threatened by the Tornadoes (13-4), who trailed 15-10 at the end of the first quarter.
Newberry will host Alachua County rival GHS (17-6) at 7:30 p.m. on Tuesday. The game will be broadcast online (audio only) at Mainstreet Daily News beginning at 7:15 p.m.