It was a foregone conclusion that whoever showed up at Robert Bowers Gymnasium last Friday night was going to pay a price. Unfortunately for Portal it turned out to be the Panthers.
Bryan County’s girls were in a foul mood after being upset by McIntosh County Academy 57-53 last Tuesday. They took out their frustration on the Panthers who did not stand a chance in the Region 3A-DII game as the Redskins cruised to an easy 56-11 win.
Led by Jasmine Mikell the Redskins (17-2, 9-1) played what was perhaps their most aggressive game defensively of the season and never let up. Coach Mario Mincey substituted early and frequently and on the defensive end there was seemingly no drop off between seniors and freshmen.
Mikell scored 18 points as did sophomore post player Layla Mincey who also pulled down 13 rebounds and blocked 2 shots. Mikell also had six assists and five steals. Senior Liz Harvey added seven points, six rebounds and five steals and freshman Thalaya Burlingame had six points.
“We weren’t ready to play at McIntosh,” Harvey said. “Our mindset was not there. We gave no effort.
“It was just a feeling that we were not going to play good,” Harvey said. “We didn’t stick to our plan and we just…no effort.”
Bryan County led the Panthers (5-9, 3-5) 24-4 at the end of the first quarter and then held them scoreless in the second quarter to set up a Tuesday night game at Metter (9-2, 7-1) which will see the winner take over the region lead. McIntosh (6-10, 5-2) was in third-place going into Tuesday’s games with Screven County (9-5, 6-3) in fourth.
The Redskins will host Savannah High (1-8, 0-7) at 6 p.m. Friday and then will have another strong region test next Tuesday when they play at Screven County in the first of three straight road games which will also see them playing at ECI and Jenkins County.
“We had to come back and prove ourselves after that game,” Harvey said of the McIntosh loss. “We needed that loss to realize we need to go harder. It was a wakeup call.”
The Redskins, Harvey said, were not scheduled to practice on Wednesday but wound up doing so with the loss to the Buccaneers whose record is somewhat deceiving as they have played a difficult non-region schedule against higher classification teams.
It was 21-1 before Portal got its first basket, a 3-pointer by Alysa King with 55 seconds left in the first quarter. The overwhelmed Panthers did not score their next basket until there was 5:33 left in the game.
After failing to score in the second quarter Portal had two points in the third, both on free throws. It was 36-4 at the half and 42-6 after three.
The Redskins came out in the frame of mind, i.e., intense and focused, Mincey wanted following two days of practice that placed an emphasis on defense.
“I don’t like giving up more than 40 points a game,” Mincey said. “I was not happy with giving up that many (57) so our practices were all about defense. A bunch of defensive stuff, angles…just intensity. And free throws. We missed a bunch of free throws against McIntosh.
“Defensively we did not do a good job of getting back in transition so we just went back to the basics,” Mincey said. “That’s what I wanted to see tonight and that’s what we saw.”
