No. 6-ranked Warrior girls top pesky Bears

By Allen Etzler
Published in Sports on January 28, 2015 1:48 PM

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Toward the end of the third quarter, Eastern Wayne found itself in unchartered waters.

The Warriors trailed by two -- and had yet to fall behind that late in a game all season.

After a timeout, they immediately got the ball into the hands of senior Jasmine Covington. She let a 3-pointer fly.

"That's off," Covington yelled when she released the shot.

Covington's shot wasn't off, but banked off the backboard instead and gave Eastern Wayne a one-point lead. Covington scored the next eight points and the No. 6-ranked Warriors stayed unbeaten with a 48-42 win over Eastern Carolina 3-A/4-A Conference rival New Bern on Tuesday evening.

"It wasn't pretty, but a win is a win and we'll take it," Warriors coach Phil Gray said.

Covington finished with 18 points, but none bigger than her third quarter three.

"I didn't think that was going in at all," Covington said. "But once it did I was 'OK let's do this'."

On top of the late run, the Warriors felt the need to increase their defensive pressure.

After spending most of the game in a half court 3-2 zone, the players told Gray they wanted to make a change. They switched to a full-court trap and forced 11 turnovers, which made it difficult for the Bears to run their offense.

"Most teams know that we like to sit in that 3-2 and they don't see us press up a whole lot," Covington said. "We wanted to turn the pressure up and get after it in the full-court game."

The trap also made it easier for the Warriors to get their transition game going, which they had not done to that point.

"We hadn't gotten out and running all game, so the pressure helped us to get out in transition like we like to," Gray said.

Naheria Hamilton added seven points, 14 points and blocked six shots for the Warriors. Chelsea Wynn continued her solid play off the bench scoring six points and 10 boards. Megan Mozingo had seven steals.

New Bern was led by Teana Lewis, who dropped in 18 points off the bench for the Bears. Diajah Hickson scored nine points.

On Monday, Gray reiterated to his team at practice that they had not done anything yet.

"18-0 is nothing," Gray told them. "We can lose at any time."

That statement was nearly prophetic. Gray said some of that may have been his own fault.

"They ran a lot at practice yesterday so maybe they were a little tired," Gray said. "Things didn't go our way early, so maybe it was that. I got a technical in the first 30 seconds, so that about sums up our night."