Goldsboro's Moses tabbed girls' player-of-the-year

By Andrew Stevens
Published in Sports on March 31, 2013 1:52 AM

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Tyona Moses admitted that she was scared when she made the girls' basketball team as a freshman at Goldsboro High School.

By the time the season was over, it was the Cougars' opponents who were scared of Moses.

Moses was part of a Goldsboro team that finished 18-6, won the Carolina 1-A Conference regular-season and tournament titles, and reached the second round of the N.C. High School Athletic Association playoffs.

For her efforts, Moses is the 2012-2013 News-Argus All-Area Girls' Basketball Player-of-the-Year.

The daughter of former Goldsboro and Saint Augustine's College standout LaFonte Moses, Tyona grew up longing to emulate her father.

Despite turning plenty of heads with her abilities during two seasons as a member of the girls' basketball team at Dillard Middle School, Moses didn't expect to make the varsity squad as a freshman at Goldsboro.

"I thought I was going to make the JV team," Moses said. "I was just scared coming to high school as a freshman and making the varsity team. I thought I was just JV material."

Moses quickly silenced her own doubts by developing chemistry with the Cougars' upperclassmen and with success on the court.

In her first varsity game, Moses scored 17 points and helped Goldsboro to win a over Rocky Mount Prep. Moses scored a career-high 36 points in just her sixth varsity game, and she was held to single digits in points just twice all season. She eclipsed the 20-point mark in 10 of the Cougars' 24 games and averaged 18 points a contest.

"Tyona stepped into a role that we needed and she performed well," Goldsboro head coach LaTina Bullock said. "She is a versatile player, she can play inside and out. This past year, I used her as a post player and she was very dominant in there and that's what we needed."

Moses' importance was not just felt on the offensive end. She was often called upon to defend an opponent's leading scorer and she committed herself to becoming a better rebounder.

By the season's end, Moses was the Cougars' leading rebounder with seven per game.

"My defense is something that I really had to improve," Moses said. "When you come to high school and you play varsity, you have to play offense and defense so I learned to play more defense. Rebounding was kind of new to me this year because I wasn't used to going under the basket and getting rebounds."

Through all the experiences of her freshman season, Moses points to Goldsboro's four-game losing streak in December as the biggest teaching tool. Three of the four losses were by double digits, and it was then Moses says she and her teammates learned the most.

"You can't win them all, but when we did come together as a team we started winning," Moses said. "At that time we weren't mentally focused, but then we got together and we mentally focused. It showed us the importance of staying together."