The Eastern Brown Lady Warriors are Brown County Holiday Tournament champions for the fourth straight year under head coach Kevin Pickerill.
The Lady Warriors powered past Georgetown in the paint in Saturday’s championship game to come away with a 55-37 victory.
“It’s four years in a row and it’s one of our goals every year to win it. It’s a challenge. Everybody is wanting your best shot. Our kids were able to step up and get through some adversity there early and some animosity among the kids and battled. It’s a great accomplishment,” said Pickerill.
“As a coach, it’s one of your goals as a yearly goal, but it’s not easy,” added Pickerill. “We get everybody’s best shot and I felt like we handled it.”
Eastern scored the first eight points of the game, with six coming in the paint – four from Allison Malott and two from Alexa Pennington – and two from the free throw line from Pennington. Georgetown cut the lead to three after getting on the board on a layup from Kennedy Underwood at the 2:25 mark, followed by a 3-pointer from Hailey Gregory, but a triple from Juanita Frost gave Eastern an 11-5 lead at the end of the frame.
Torie Utter hit a triple to open the second quarter, but two putbacks – one from Morgan Reynolds and another from Malott – put the Lady Warriors up, 15-8. Eastern outrebounded Georgetown, 26-10, during the first half to take a 27-16 lead into the break after a 3-pointer from Camryn Pickerill and a layup from Malott.
“We played them eight days ago and had pretty good success inside and we felt like that was a goal of ours – to go back inside and attack maybe one of their weaknesses,” said Pickerill.
The Lady Warriors came away with a 50-27 win at Georgetown on Dec. 20.
The size of Eastern helped limit the Lady G-Men to just four points in the third, while also helping to score 11 to go ahead, 38-20, heading into the fourth. Freshman Mackenzie Gloff had six points in the period for the Lady Warriors.
“Their size is huge. When we played them a week ago, we talked about their size, how we had to be physical as much as we could. We had to get around them, we had to box out and, I would say give or take 15 offensive rebounds, at least, they got,” said Georgetown coach Andrew Gill. “Every offensive rebound they get, they score on. They’re a good team. If you give them second, third and fourth chances, they’re going to beat you every time.”
Georgetown added 17 points in the final frame, including nine from Utter, but Eastern had six players combine to score 17 points to maintain the 18-point advantage and close out the championship.
Reynolds and Malott each finished with 12 points to lead Eastern. Gloff added 10 and Pickerill had nine for the Lady Warriors, who move to 11-2 with the win. They’re scheduled to host Adena on Thursday.
Utter led Georgetown with 16 points and Kim Seigla had 11. The Lady G-Men fall to 6-4 and will travel to Clermont Northeastern for a league matchup on Thursday.
LADY WARRIORS 55, LADY G-MEN 37
EHS 11-16-11-17—55
GHS 5-11-4-17—37
Scoring:
EASTERN BROWN (55) — Reynolds 12, Malott 12, Gloff 10, Pickerill 9, Pennington 6, Frost 4, Edmisten 2
GEORGETOWN (37) — Utter 16, Seigla 11, Gregory 4, Underwood 4, Benjamin 2
Records: Eastern Brown 11-2, Georgetown 6-4
