Milton Girls Advance With Win Over Etowah

Despite the way the game played out, it was not the strategy of Milton head coach Craig Bennett to have arguably his two best players on the bench in foul trouble for the majority of the first half.

“That kind of surprised us a little bit, but we felt like we were holding our own without (them),” Bennett said. “We finished the second quarter with three of (our starters) on the bench, and we knew at halftime if we could come back with those three we could hopefully get a little bit of an advantage.”

After getting two fouls in the game’s first minute and sitting out the rest of the half, Milton’s leading scorer Nikki Dixon returned with a vengeance to lead her team to a 39-36 win over Etowah in the second round of the state tournament Tuesday.

Dixon scored all of her game-high 12 points in the second half and was a disruptive force on the defensive end as Milton advanced to the state quarterfinals for the second straight season.

“She does that a lot. She’s a phenomenal athlete,” Bennett said of Dixon. “She can take the game over when she wants to, and lucky for us she’s on our team.”

Center Tori Waldner picked up her second foul with one minute remaining in the first quarter and spent the rest of the half on the bench as well.

Etowah head coach Bob Westbrook knew that his team missed an opportunity when they led just 17-14 at halftime.

“We lost the game because we did not take advantage of them being on the bench for the whole second quarter,” Westbrook said. “I felt like that was when we should have run the score up a little bit. How many? I don’t know. Who knows? But to just be up three with those two girls on the bench for virtually the whole second quarter, that concerned me. When they got back in there they were a totally different basketball team obviously.”

Dixon returned to the game at the start of the third quarter and provided an instant spark on both ends of the floor, but Milton still trailed 27-25 in the closing seconds of the quarter. That’s when Dixon heaved a prayer from the hash mark that banked in at the buzzer to give Milton a 28-27 lead going into the fourth quarter.

They never trailed again, but the end of the game was not without its drama.

Milton built a 37-30 lead with just under two minutes remaining, and Bennett spread the floor and invited Etowah to foul. That’s exactly what happened, but Milton hit just two of eight free throws down the stretch to leave the door open for Etowah.

Etowah point guard Stephanie Huffman drained a three pointer with 10 seconds left to cut the lead to 38-36. The homestanding Eagles got the ball one more time, trailing by three, but Huffman’s three-pointer from the left wing fell just short at the buzzer.

Milton will play the winner of Wednesday’s Norcross-Alpharetta matchup with a spot in the final four on the line. That game will be played at 4 p.m. Saturday at the University of West Georgia in Carrollton.