So far, it’s not been the start to the New Year that the Jefferson Lady Dragons had hoped for.
In their first week back since the New Year’s break, Jefferson has dropped games to both Fannin County and Franklin County with the region opener looming on the horizon.
Now the Lady Dragons are preparing for their sub-region opener this Friday night at home against Oglethorpe County.
The Lady Patriots are another team looking for footing as they enter region play, as they have already dropped one region pairing to Fannin County back in December.
Tip-off Friday night is scheduled for 7 p.m.
For a while, it looked like last Tuesday’s game against Fannin County might be a turning point for Jefferson. The Lady Dragons took an eight-point lead early in the game, and found themselves up by six at the end of the first quarter. While Fannin County charged back, Jefferson was able to hold on, and was down only by one at the half.
But the second half got off to a slow start for the Lady Dragons, and was down by as many as nine points during the third quarter, only to fight back in the fourth quarter.
Jefferson found themselves down only by three with 19 seconds left on the clock, but couldn’t put what they needed together to make a late move. Fannin came away with the 35-29 victory.
Erin Knight led Jefferson in scoring with 13 points against the Lady Rebels.
“We played well in spurts against Fannin County we just couldn’t make enough plays down the stretch to pull out the win,” said coach Jason Gibson.
The Lady Dragons next traveled to Franklin County to face the number one ranked AAA Lady Lions on Saturday.
It started out in a similar fashion to Tuesday’s game, as Jefferson led early in the first, but then found themselves down by 13 points early on in the second quarter. The Lady Dragons surged back to cut the lead to six points with a minute and a half left in the first half, but three steals and lay-ups by the Lady Lions put Franklin back up by 12 at the half.
The Lady Dragons made another charge in the third quarter, and at one point cut the lead to nine points, but then Franklin County again took control, and at the end recorded a 59-34 victory.
Emily Jacobs led the Lady Dragons in scoring with eight points, while Erin Knight scored seven.
“Marcayla Hester played extremely good defense holding Shorter College signee Ashley Harris to two field goals for the game,” Gibson said.
Gibson gave credit where it was due, saying that Franklin County is a very good basketball team.
“They have a lot of weapons and they are extremely good in transition,” he said. “We committed twenty-six turnovers that led to 26 points for Franklin County. You can’t give up that many points off of turnovers to a team like Franklin. Those type teams will capitalize on those mistakes and it will get you beat.”
Jefferson was scheduled to travel to Rabun County Tuesday night. Results of that game were unavailable at press time.
