2004

East Central sweeps past Jones County

By Shawn Wansley EMG Sports Wnter ELLISVILLE- Late surges propelled the East Central Community College Warriors to a sweep of the Jones Junior College Bobcats here Thursday night at Bobcat Gym. In the women's game. East Central broke a 55-55 tie in the game's final three minutes: outscoring Jones 9-l down the stretch to post a 64-56 victory m a matchup of South Division leaders. In the h1en's game, the War– riors broke a 65-65 tie in the game's final three minutes, outscoring Jones 10-2 to notch their first division win of the season. 75-67. TI1e Lady Warriors. ranked No. 16 in the latest National Junior College Athletic Associ– ation poll, improve to 14-2 overall, 5-l in the division. Jones falls to 9-7 overall. 4·2 in the division. The East Central men are now 6-10 overall. 1·5 in the divi– sion. The Bobcats have now dropped two straight home league games. falling to 13·3 overall, 4-2 in the division East Central hosts Faulkner (Ala.) State Saturday and visits Gulf Coast Monday. Jones is on the road Monday at Pearl River. Lady Warriors 64 Lady Bobcats 56 East Central coach Brad Hodge knew his team would be in for a battle. "Anytime you play a team coached by coach (Sandra) Sumrall, you knowyou're going to be in for a fight," he said. "They are a much improved team and they're scrappy. They weren't tied with us for first place just by luck. -- ---- ···---- . ............. ....

''They are a very good ball· dub." Jones took a 55-53 lead with 4:05 left in the game when Tylesbia Arrington made two free throws. East Central's Kimyatta Viverette hit a tO– footer in the lane to tie it up at 55-55 with 3:29 remaining. The Lady Bobcats then missed a pair of free throws with just over three minutes to play. East Central's Rita Birden scored on a drive to the basket with 2:45 left and Lenore Gray added a bucket at the 2:08 mark to make it 59-55. Viverette made a free throw with 1:20 left Jones' final point came with 1·03 left when Arrington made a free throw. But. Gray and Kristen Chaney each made driving layups in the final 45 seconds to seal the win. Hodge credited his team's defense tn th(: final minutes as the key. "We were able to make stops and make some plays in the last three or four minutes," he said. ''That was the difference. They came at us with everything and when we needed to make a play, we did "Our team takes a lot of pride in our defense, espl-cially in the last couple of minutes." Jones led 22-17 midway through the first half, but the Lady Warriors stormed back to take a 35-27 halftime lead. East Central led 42-31 early in the second half, but Jones rallied to take a 46-44 lead with 10:44 left when Jasmine Versher hit a 3-pointer. Birden led East Central with 12 points, while Viverette and Kotreece Bender added 10 each.

PHOTO BY DOH Hill/ EMG PHOTOGRAPHER

SHIELDING THE BALL East Central's Kristen Chaney tries to dribble around Jones' Tyleshia Arrington during the Lady Warriors' 64-56 win. Versher had H! for J(mes, while Brittany Baham added 13.

Burnside scored again with 53.2 seconds left and followed with a free throw at the 38.9 SE'COnd mark to make it 70-65. Jones' John Gray scored with 31 seconds remaining to make it 70-67. but Stephen Dyess canned a free throw and Jamaal Martin made four free throws in the final18.3 seconds left to put the game away. "The bottom line is East Central played an aggressive game.~ said JCJC head coach Robert Mcinnis. "We played pretty good m the second half and we had some opportunities to give ourselves a lead or win the game. But, some of our sophomores did not make free throws and they came down and got some momentum." Martin led East Central with

Warriors Bobcats 75 67 Billy S111ith ~d his Warriors were in familiar territory when they took a 44·30 lead at half– time. "We've had big leads in our last five games and we've lost three of them because we gave up the lead in the second half," he said... Tonight, when we got behind in the second half maybe we learned from it." Jont'S took a 65-63 lead with 3:45 left when Milton Collins drove the ba"elu e and slarru11ed home a dunk East Central's Dewaync Hughes canned a pair of free throws with 3:00 to tie it up at 65-65. Tellas Burnside then c::cored for the Warriors to make it 67-65 with 2:15 left. t;ARTHAGINIAN

22 points. Hughes added 14 an · 1 Dyess had 11. Gray and Marvin McDonald had 18 each for JonE-s. ------- NESHOBA DEMOCRAT ------ NEWTON RECORD :------- MERIDIAN STAR y/ ....__ ______ CLARION-LEDGER - ------

------- SCOTT COUNTY TIMES ------- UNION APPEAL - -------- WINSTON COUNTY JOURNAL ------ SPIRIT OF MORTON IMPACT ---------------