Bravettes involved in rare first-round battle

Published 2:48 pm Friday, February 21, 2025

Adairsville High provided the Baldwin High Bravettes with a rare first-round battle for an opening round game in the GHSA girls basketball tournament. Unlike back-to-back blowouts of Shaw (2022-23) by margins of 39 and 24 points and last year’s five-point showing by Southeast Bulloch, Kizzi Walker and her troops found themselves protecting leads as low as three in the fourth quarter Tuesday on the James A. Lunsford court.

After a big fourth period by sophomore forward Suri Clark with about 11 of her 18 points, No. 7 seed Baldwin did the ‘survive-and-advance’ thing by a final of 60-52 over the Lady Tigers from Bartow County. That sets up a strong second-round game against No. 10 seed White County High Saturday in Milledgeville.

Sandy’s Spiel’s final regular season state rankings for Class AAA have Baldwin No. 1 and White County No. 7. Both clubs have 22 wins on the 2024-25 season. The game tips off at 4 p.m.

Baldwin senior center Janaye Walker had 22 points, 18 coming in the first half. She did not make a field goal in the second half as she sat most of the game time in foul trouble. Fellow senior Kassidy Neal had 14 points.

The Adairsville Lady Tigers, coming into Milledgeville with 11 wins on the season, got much more points from 3-point shooting than Baldwin and caused some critical turnovers by pressing full court. They did not have the size to match the Bravettes on the boards except in the case of getting weak side rebounds from long missed shots.

Janaye Walker had 10 of Baldwin’s 12 first quarter points with two on offensive rebounds and taking assists inside from Triana Lawrence and Amari Baker.

Adairsville countered with three 3-pointers, one coming on a second-chance shot. That enabled the Lady Tigers to have a lead as big as seven in the quarter. Baldwin had the final six of the period but still trailed 13-12 after eight minutes.

That run, however, extended into the second quarter with seven more in a row. From the bench, senior forward Kyla Levester took an assist inside from guard Princess Huff. The Bravettes threw many a long baseball-like outlet off the Lady Tiger misses, and when Adairsville finally scored in the second, it was 19-15 Baldwin at 4:42.

Adairsville made only one more 3-pointer in the first half, but Neal led the Bravette charge taking the game into intermission. She scored on an assist from Walker, blocked a shot and had one of her three steals. Clark, who often waits until deep into a game to start making her impact, put back an offensive rebound with three seconds on the clock.

At the half, Baldwin led 30-21, then the home team opened the second half with another Clark put-back. As Walker took an early seat with her third foul, her team’s lead fluctuated between seven and 12 points. Adairsville’s pressure defense kept the overall point total down to just 10 in the third quarter, and Baldwin found itself needing to make better decisions with the basketball.

Neither team did too well at the foul line, but the quarter went by without a 3-pointer from the Lady Tigers. The score read 40-27 going into the fourth quarter, and Walker returned to action. It was really, though, Clark’s play that secured the victory.

Clark followed the action on a fast-break and put-back another rebound basket for 44-29. Adairsville answered with its first 3-ball of the second half and added two more from a takeaway. At 44-34 with 5:58 to play, Walker went to the bench again with her fourth foul.

The Lady Tigers proceeded to complete a 10-0 run (another 3 and turnover basket), and Walker got back on the floor at 4:52 and a 44-39 score.

Baldwin’s success against the press picked up with Neal and Clark baskets. Time was moving agonizingly slow, and the Bravettes were still losing possession enough to give the visitors hope. They got as close as three, 51-48, and four, 56-52, but Clark always responded using two assists from Zuri Grant.

Braves bounce Beach

With four players scoring in double figures and one getting a double-double, Baldwin High’s boys basketball team was too much for the Beach High Bulldogs of Savannah Wednesday in the GHSA opening round game held on the James A. Lunsford court.

Deven Nelson surpassed 1,000 career points early in the contest and went on to put in 18 overall to go with 12 rebounds. Karez Demory led Baldwin with 21 points (he already had more than 1,000) and helped others with seven assists.

Jared Mundie scored the first eight of the first 10 for the Braves and had three 3-pointers in a 13-point night. Baldwin shot 45% from 3 and 55% from the floor.

Trakeon Downing was the fourth in double figures getting 10 points.

After Mundie’s first quarter output, Beach was able to stay in the game trailing 10-6. The Bulldogs scored two off a steal, but couldn’t get anything from two other thefts.

Nelson scored twice on penetration, and Demory took the final shot clock of the opening quarter down to one second. He nailed his jumper, and the Braves coasted into the second quarter up 19-8.

Beach High would indeed score after a steal to start the new period, and the Bulldogs showed a deadly shooting touch with 10 points over 3:30. The closed the gap down to five, 23-28, then Demory canned a 3 with just under four minutes until halftime.

In fact, the Braves decided to stage a little 3-point contest a few days after the NBA All-Star Weekend, and Demory, Nelson and Downing all made one to close out the half leading 39-25.

Baldwin maintained a sizeable cushion throughout the second half with Mundie scoring his third 3-pointer at 3;05 of the third period. From the bench of coach Ben Smith, guard Zion Grant closed out the period making a driving lay-up and assisted the last two by forward Bryan Goddard.

It was 55-39 after three, and in the fourth Downing scored on a baseline drive and threw an outlet assist to Nelson. Goddard scored again with help from Nelson.

Up next for Baldwin, seeded No. 6 in Class AAA after its Region 4-AAA title victory, is a second-round home game against Upson-Lee High from Thomaston. Their game will follow the Baldwin-White County girls game Saturday at approximately 5:30 p.m.