Goldsboro beats Rosewood in girls' semis

By From staff reports
Published in Sports on February 18, 2010 1:46 PM

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CALYPSO -- Part one of week two is done.

Senior play-making guard Zeara McDuffie posted a double-double, and top-seeded Goldsboro dispatched Rosewood 56-23 in their semifinal-round, Carolina 1-A Conference tournament contest Wednesday evening.

McDuffie pumped in a game-high 13 points and dished out 10 assists for the Cougars, who oppose the winner of today's Princeton-Ayden-Grifton matchup in the championship game Friday. Tip-off is 6 p.m.

North Duplin is the tournament host.

Goldsboro (20-4 overall) harassed Rosewood into 10 first-quarter turnovers and built a 21-8 lead.

"The girls came out like they wanted to win ... got stops on defense," said Cougars head coach Brandy Smith. "In the press, as soon as the middle (court) was covered and the sideline was covered, it was hard for them to get it back out.

"They relied on one person to get it up the floor and once we got it out of her hands, they had other people who had to be in charge of the basketball and they weren't too comfortable with that."

The fourth-seeded Eagles finished with 32 turnovers for the game.

"We made young mistakes," said Rosewood coach Ryan Wells. "Goldsboro is so long and they're so tall. Normal passes that you see in conference (play) just aren't going to get there. They get to their spots and are really aggressive about it.

"Once we started to recover from it, they were out to a pretty significant lead."

Akeyanna Whitlor added 10 points for the Cougars. Talaya Lassiter knocked down nine points. Alexus Myles and Kasheika Wallace (10 rebounds) each contributed eight points.

Senior Taylor Johnson paced Rosewood with nine points.