By By Marty Stampe/The Meridian Star
Jan. 4, 2001
FOREST It didn't take long into the new year to break out the whipping sticks in the girls' division of the Central Mississippi Classic.
In Wednesday's first-round action, Meridian won by 35 points, Scott Central won by 16, and Forest rolled to a 23-point victory.
Today's girls' games have Union meeting Northwest Rankin at 5:30 p.m. in the losers' bracket and Choctaw Central taking on Pearl at 8 p.m. in a first-round game.
Meridian girls 81, South Leake 46: Meridian jumped out to a 29-13 first quarter advantage as they beat South Leake in the mid-afternoon game to snap a two-game losing streak.
Cantea Brown scored 14 points and Kenecia Williams had eight to lead Meridian to the big lead in the opening period.
The Lady Wildcats led 50-27 at halftime. Chelse Alford, making her first appearance since a knee injury on Nov. 20, tallied 10 points for Meridian in the second period.
Brown finished with 22 points to lead the second-ranked Lady Wildcats as they improved to 16-2. Alford and Williams both scored 12, Stephanie Mosley had 10, Valencia Hairston added eight, Cassandra Harris had six, and Chandra Collier had five.
South Leake, 12-8, got 13 points from Monique Overstreet, 12 from freshman Tierra Young, and five from Ashley Martin.
Scott Central girls 54, Union 38: Union led the defending Class 1A state champions 19-10 in the second quarter and had a chance to expand on that lead but three missed layups enabled Scott Central to close to within 21-18 by halftime.
The Lady Rebels outscored Union 16-7 in the third quarter to go up 34-28 and then posted a 20-10 advantage over the final eight minutes.
Scott, 12-4, was led by Kattie Nickson's 24 points. She hit 14-of-16 free throws. Britney Burkes added 18 points for the Lady Rebels.
Union, 5-12, got 10 points from Dana Buckley, eight from Jana Smith, and six each from Jerica Hickman and LaSaundra Harrison.
Scott made 18 of its 27 free shots while Union went 0-for-4 at the charity stripe.
Forest girls 45, Northwest Rankin 22: Latrice Spivey scored 19 points to lead the defending Class 3A state runner-up Lady Bearcats to the rout of Northwest.
Forest, 11-5, led 13-2 after one quarter and held a commanding 25-6 halftime advantage.
Northwest cracked double digits with 6:41 to go in the third period on a three-point play by Paige Lemmons that pulled the Lady Cougars to within 26-11.
Forest led 38-15 entering the fourth quarter behind eight third-period points from Spivey.
Sheena Evans had six points for Forest.
Northwest got five points apiece from Lemmons and Stephanie Boggans.