Chipola takes two in Classic

Chipola maintained its perfect record with a pair of wins over nationally-ranked opponents Thursday and Friday at the Milton H. Johnson Health Center.

The Lady Indians defeated No. 18 Monroe 78-72 Thursday night and No. 2 Trinity Valley 87-66 Friday in the Alzheimer’s Classic.

Chipola was scheduled to face Jefferson, the No. 1 team in the country, Saturday night.

A full report on that game will be in the Tuesday edition of the Floridan.

The Lady Indians built big leads in both games and nearly gave it all back against Monroe.

Chipola led Monroe 39-28 at halftime and led by as much as 16 points in the second half before the Lady Tribunes charged back.

Harassing full-court pressure by Monroe forced Chipola into 17 second-half turnovers, which led to several easy Lady Tribune buckets.

A 7-0 run by Monroe, which included two steals converted into lay-ups, cut the Chipola lead to 56-49 after a basket by Charmonique Watt.

A 3-pointer by Danay Collier made it 58-52 with nine minutes to play.

Another 3-pointer by Watt trimmed the deficit all the way to two points at 59-57 with 7:16 on the clock.

Chipola answered with six straight points, with a bucket by Latoya Williams making it a 65-57 lead with 5:12 to play.

However, the Lady Tribunes did not go away, getting a two from Collier and a three from Watt to cut the lead back to three points.

Krystal Parnell added a triple to bring Monroe to within a bucket a 67-65, then tied the game on a driving lay-up with 4:03 to play.

Collier’s basket with 3:23 on the clock gave Monroe its first lead of the game at 69-67.

Monroe maintained a 72-71 lead with 1:15 to play before Pearl Johnson’s floater in the lane gave Chipola a 73-72 advantage with 1:03 to play.

After forcing a Lady Tribunes miss on the other end, Chipola raced back down the court and got a lay-up from Georgien Williams to go up 75-72 with 38 seconds left.

A pair of free throws by Johnson with 14.3 seconds on the clock sealed the win.

The Lady Indians got a monster performance from Latoya Williams, who scored 20 points with 19 rebounds and four blocked shots.

Georgien Williams added 18 points on 8-for-8 shooting and seven rebounds.

The Lady Indians were even more impressive Friday night, leading nearly the whole way and leading by double digits for the game’s final 28 minutes.

While the Williams combination led the way against Monroe, the Lady Indians got a far more balanced performance against Trinity Valley.

Lenita Sanford led the way with 15 points and seven rebounds, with Marnesha Hall adding 14, Georgien Williams, Erin Boyd-Redmond and Carolyn Mills nine
each, Jamia Akins eight and Sequoya Griffin seven.

One thing that was the same in both games was the Lady Indians’ domination of the glass.

After outrebounding Monroe 59-33, Chipola beat Trinity Valley on the boards 52-36.

Chipola coach David Lane said that has and will continue to be a strength of his team.

“We’ve got five or six girls who can go in there and get rebounds,” the coach said. “We can match up well with big posts or small posts.”

Lane pointed to the play in the second game of Hall and Sanford, who combined to score just seven in the first game, as well as the contributions of Boyd-
Redmond, who didn’t play Thursday night, as an illustration of perhaps the biggest strength of this Lady Indians team.

“That’s where our depth comes into play,” the coach said. “If we have people not doing what they’re supposed to do, we can bring in people who will.”