Alpharetta Girls Win First Round Playoff Game

The Alpharetta Lady Raiders won their first round state playoff game against the South Gwinnett Lady Comets, 40-37, on the strength of sophomore Kylee Smith's shooting and team defense.

Smith, who has scored more than 1,000 points already in her high school career, added another 23 points on field goals and free throws. She put up five field goals and was 13 of 14 on the line.

Lauren Brown added 8 points, Delaney Hollenbeck another 6 and Jasmine Newsome put up 3 points.

The Lady Raiders play the winner of Saturday's game between Norcross and Walton.

South Gwinnett was leading 23-20 at the start of the second half, but Alpharetta scored two baskets and held the lead by one with 4:45 left in the third quarter. At the end of the quarter it was 33-30, with the Lady Raiders maintaining a lead.

The Lady Raiders stepped it up in the second half and became mentally tough, said head coach Angela Anderson-Hurt. In the first half the team worried about who was fouling and what calls weren't being made, she said.

"In the second half, I thought like you saw us quit worrying about if the foul happened and just playing through it and getting something out of it," Anderson-Hurt said.

The Lady Comets were able to tie it up, 36-36, with 4:49 remaining, but they only scored one point on a free throw for the rest of the game, while the Lady Raiders added four points on free throws.

The last two minutes of the game got exciting, as the Lady Comets made it 38-37 with 1:20 left. However, being forced to put Kylee Smith back on the line didn't help, as she added two more points with 12.2 seconds left, sealing the fate of South Gwinnett.

Alpharetta's biggest concern going into the game was having two starters sick.

"Jasmine (Newsome) has run a fever for the last two days. Delaney (Hollenbeck) has been out this week with a fever, went to the doctor today and it was a sinus infection," Anderson-Hurt said. "More than anything, we've had two of our starters pretty sick this week."

Coaches had to make sure in the rotation there was no drop-off with the players who filled in for them.

"I felt like that Megan Tesh, when we started her, she did a great job of stepping up and having a great game for us," Anderson-Hurt said.

South Gwinnett head coach Jaime Kruppa was generally pleased with her team's play.

"There were a few times where we missed an assignment, but overall we worked our defensive assignments the way we wanted to do them," she said.

Friday wasn't the first time the Lady Comets played against the Lady Raiders.

"They're a great team. We played them twice and they beat us twice already before tonight and we knew it was going to be a tough game," Kruppa said.

So the Lady Comets knew what was coming.

"We knew they were going to come out and get after it. Offensively we got some of the shots we wanted, we did some of the things we wanted to do," Kruppa said.

"It seems like we would get it going for a little bit, and then they would get one or two defensive stops and kind of stop our momentum, which is what good teams do," she said.

South Gwinnett's Kierra Clayton led her team with 11 points, shooting three 3-point shots and one 2-pointer, but she was 0 for 2 on the line.

Tina Odume was perfect from the line, sinking all six of her attempts. She added two field goals to round out her 10 points on the night.

Jashwana Johnson scored 5 points, Alysia Johnson added 4 and both Samantha McCombs and Colette Onenda put up 2 points.