PEMBROKE -- When you can play less than your best and win you can’t complain and Bryan County girls’ basketball coach Mario Mincey was not complaining.

The Lady Redskins, playing without leading scorer Kenzie Stucker, were coming off a 42-34 loss at Region 3A Public leader Screven County, and were wanting to avoid a 0-2 start in region play.

Thanks to a 12-point outburst in the fourth quarter and a strong defensive effort Bryan County was able to sneak past visiting Jenkins County, 29-23, Friday night before rebounding to coast to a 54-28 win over Southeast Bulloch on Saturday night.

Bryan County (5-2, 1-1) will be at home against Claxton at 6 p.m. Friday night after playing at ECI on Tuesday night.

Senior point guard Niyah Shuman scored 11 points to lead the win over the War Eagles, scoring seven in the fourth quarter, and followed up with 17 against the Yellow Jackets.

“Kenzie is banged up a little,” Mincey said. “She’s averaging 16 points a game and when you take that kind of production out of your lineup you can tell it.”

“She should be ready to play against ECI but I’ll probably hold her out,” Mincey said. “We miss her but I’m not going to rush her back this early in the season. I’m in it for the long haul. There’s no need to play her until she’s fully healthy.”

Jenkins led 11-9 after the first quarter and was unable to capitalize when the Redskins were able to score only one-point in the second quarter, a free throw by Emery Adams, as it was able to manage only a pair of free throws.

The Eagles led 19-12 lead in the third quarter before the Redskins went on a 12-0 run that carried over into the fourth quarter.

“No matter how ugly a game it is you still have to play defense,” Mincey said. “Tonight was a perfect example of that. Our offense struggled but we still played good defense.”

Freshman Ashanti Brown added seven points in support of Shuman while helping the Redskins to an advantage on the boards. Anderia Jackson added six points.

With Stucker out Mincey had inserted Brown into the lineup and the 5-foot-7 first year player, one of nine freshmen on the varsity roster, has responded.

“It’s good when you lose a junior (Stucker) and can plug in a freshman and she gets in double digits for you,” Mincey said. “She had 13 points and 10 rebounds at Screven. She needs to improve her free throw shooting and she’s working on that.”

The Redskins had a much easier night of it against the Yellow Jackets as they jumped out to a big lead early and coasted home.

Brown had 10 points, 14 rebounds, one block and two steals against SEB and Jackson turned in another solid performance with 10 points, five assists and three steals.