Cordele — Crisp Academy’s Lady Wildcats and Georgia Christian’s Generals showed why they’re atop the Region 3-A girls and boys standings Tuesday night, with the former looking especially impressive.

Going up against a Lady Generals team figured to be their stiffest challenger in league play this season, coach Gina Mitchell’s girls waltzed to a runaway 61-26 victory.

The GCS boys had a much more difficult time in prevailing as the upset-minded Wildcats of coach Jodie Hays came close to pulling off a shocker before ultimately bowing 56-53.

Both Crisp Academy teams swing back into action on Friday when they journey to Shellman to go up against Randolph Southern.

Lady ’Çats 61, Lady Generals 26

In improving their overall record to a glittering 22-2, the Lady Wildcats maintained their status as a double-digit winner in all seven of their region games where victory margins have ranged from 11 to 54 points.

The Lady Generals did manage to keep things respectable for a half, trailing by only six (13-7) after a quarter and by just 12 (29-17) at intermission. After that, Crisp blew them away by winning the third period 20-5 and taking the fourth 12-4 to ultimately come out on top by 35.

“We played good defense particularly in the second half when we did a better job of keeping pressure on them,” said Mitchell whose team came up with a whopping 27 steals in employing a full-court press throughout.

The Lady Wildcats’ offense wasn’t bad either as when the open person got her hands on the basketball more often than not she put it in the basket.

In again clearing her bench, the Crisp coach saw eight of the 10 players she used break into the scoring column. Her daughter Madi led the way with 19. Kendall Wilson was right on her heels with a season-high 18 and joined Kayla Childers and Kara White in getting seven steals each.

Haley Garrett pitched in 12 points for GCS which had suffered an even worse 57-14 licking at the hands of the Lady Wildcats.

Score by Quarters

Georgia Christian 7-10-5-4 — 26

Crisp Academy 13-16-20-12 — 61

Scoring

Georgia Christian (26) — Haley Garrett 12, Lauren Redshaw 3, Morgan Sykes 2, Lindsey Levings 9, Erin Copeland.

Team totals: field goals 5; free throws 13 of 20 (65%); fouls 10; 3-pointers — Garrett 2, Levings 1; fouled out — none.

Crisp Academy (61) — Sidney Folsom 1, Parker Krause 4, Kayla Childers 8, Kara White 6, Maddie Krause 3, Kendall Wilson 18, Emily Faircloth, Jay Jay Yawn 2, Bree Carpenter, Madi Mitchell 19.

Team totals: field goals 25; free throws 7 of 12 (58.3%); fouls 16; 3-pointers — Wilson 4; fouled out — none.

Generals 56, Wildcats 53

Entering their fray with ambitions of avenging a previous 54-43 loss to the Generals, the Wildcats may well have achieved that goal had they not dug themselves into such a deep points hole (29-19) by intermission.

“We came out and got back into the game by employing a full court press the second half when we forced a lot of turnovers and did a much better job of attacking the basket,” Hays said.

“Prior to that, we had settled on taking too many 3-point shots despite the fact we’ve struggled with our long range accuracy all season long. We only made one in this one.”

When the third period ended, Crisp still trailed by 10 at 43-33. Try as it might, it could not make it a one-possession game before being forced to foul in the late going where GCS hit seven free throws to hang on for its hard-earned win.

“I was proud of our guys for not giving up and making a game of it,” Hays said. “The very fact that we had a good chance to win despite committing 26 turnovers says both good and bad about us.”

The leading scorer for the Wildcats was Banks Folsom who canned 17 of his career-high 21 points in the second half. High point man for the Generals and the game was C.J. Lynch with 26.



Score by Quarters

Georgia Christian 15-14-14-13 — 56

Crisp Academy 11-8-14-20 — 53

Scoring

Georgia Christian (56) — Quinton Carter 5, C.J. Lynch 26, Jeremiah Beverly 14, Zac Bunion 2, Christian Moore 5, Christian Wisenbaker 4.

Team totals: field goals 20; free throws 14 of 24 58.3%); fouls 20; 3-pointers — Beverly 2; fouled out — Carter.

Crisp Academy (53) — Jordan Howard 6, Hunter Chambers 8, Jake Smith 5, Banks Folsom 21, Jeff McKinney 8, Chip Posey 5, Cullen Brooks.

Team totals: field goals 21; free throws 10 of 19 (52.6%); fouls 22; 3-pointers — Smith 1; fouled out — Chambers.