Lady Cavs hold off Bryan County

On paper it looked like a battle of heavyweights: Calvary Day School 13-1 on the season at Bryan County 12-1.

But with three minutes to go in the third quarter, Calvary appeared to be on its way to a knockout when Rachel LaGrear hit a 3-point shot to give the Cavaliers a 41-25 lead.

But the Lady Redskins outscored Calvary, 23-12, the rest of way, twice pulling to within four points in the fourth quarter before falling, 53-48, in Region 3-A play Tuesday night.

"They are scrappy, they play good defense, they force you into making quick decisions and to shoot some shots you might not want instead of setting up your offense," Calvary coach Jackie Hamilton said. "And at the end, we didn't take care of the ball as well as I'd like for us to."

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That scrappy defense forced 10 Calvary turnovers in the fourth period. But each time Bryan threatened, Calvary had an answer.

"I thought Taylor Baham made some big shots and got some rebounds for us and Kelsey Ellis hit some shots, too," Hamilton said. "We did just enough to win; we've still got a lot to work on. But we won and that's what's important."

The game started with the Redskins jumping to a six point lead only to have to the Cavaliers score the last five points of the first quarter to close to 11-10.

Calvary dominated the second period outscoring Bryan 19-10 to take a nine-point lead into the locker room at the half.

Bryan County's Olivia Melvin caught fire in the third quarter, scoring all 12 of the Redskin's points, eight of them coming after Calvary had posted its 16-point lead. But her outburst couldn't match the 15 put up by Calvary and the Redskins trailed by 12 with eight minutes to play and that proved to be too big of a margin to make up.

"The difference between Calvary and us right now is they have kids with a little more experience in playing this type of environment than we do," Bryan County coach Mario Mincey said. "Playing these good, close games against quality competition is uncharted territory for us. But I am proud we battled. We have never been this close to them, at least since I've been here. This was a measuring stick for us. I told the girls to hold their heads up. To play like this against the number four team in the state gives us something to look forward to."

Melvin led all scorers with 30 points. Ellis had 15 points and 15 rebounds for Calvary.

CALVARY (53)

Burk 2, Kelsey Ellis 15, Carter 7, Canady 7, Rachel LeGear 10, Taylor Baham 12.

BRYAN COUNTY (48)

Howard 3, Satashala Beasley 13, Olivia Melvin 30, Kim Williams 1.

Halftime-CD 30-21. Records-CD 14-1 overall, 5-0 Region 3-A: BC 12-2 overall, 4-1.