Pelham squads earn split with Randolph-Clay

PELHAM — By most standards, the Pelham Lady Hornets had a stellar performance in their 80-10 beating of Randolph-Clay Tuesday night.

But despite the 70-point victory, Pelham coach Antonia Tookes said the game showed that her team is still a work in progress, particularly on the defensive end.

“We’re improving, but we’ve got a long way to go,” she said. “Defense is a work in progress.”

Pelham still played enough defense to put the game out of reach quickly after the opening minutes. After the opening tip, the Lady Hornets stole the ball five times in the first four minutes. After several layups by Mahogany Randall and Mahogany Brown, the Lady Hornets jumped out to a 16-0 lead.

Randolph-Clay didn’t get onto the scoreboard until Morria Jordan’s basket at the 1:22 mark. Pelham ended the first with a commanding 31-2 lead.

The second quarter was more of the same and the Lady Hornets went into halftime with a 50-7 lead.

While the break was working for the Lady Hornets, they still struggled finishing at the basket. Tookes said her team forgot where they were on the floor and must continue to work on that element of their game.

“They were too far under (the basket),” she said. “You’re below the block and if you’re below the block, you don’t have a good angle at the basket. We talk about that every day at practice. So it was just knowing where they are on the floor.”

While the quarters were cut from eight to six minutes in the second half, the Lady Hornets continued to go full throttle with a number of different layups. One of the most consistent plays was Destiny Thomas grabbing the rebound and starting the break. Pelham got production from their backup guards as they were also the recipients of Thomas’ outlet passes.

This didn’t stop the Lady Red Devils from attacking and after a free throw from Trentoniah Johnson, reached double digits with about two minutes left in the game.

Brown led the way for the Lady Hornets with 24 points, followed by Randall with 19 and Aaliyah Williams with 13.

The Lady Hornets improved to 12-0 on the season and are back in action Saturday at home against Calhoun County.

Randolph-Clay boys 61, Pelham 58

Tuesday’s game was a good news-bad news situation for the Pelham Hornets. The bad news was they lost to Randolph-Clay. The good news, according to head coach Laron Smith, was that as poorly as they played against a team of Randolph-Clay’s caliber, they only lost by three.

It was a game where the Hornets played from behind throughout and came down to a few turnovers and missed shots down the stretch. Smith said his team lacks the mental toughness needed to finish out games.

“We have to want to win,” he said. “You have to have a winning attitude and we don’t have it. We didn’t play defense tough enough to win, we didn’t hit free throws, I think we missed 10 free throws … many of those the front end of a 1-and-1. We missed layups, we turned the ball over. We had 20-plus turnovers. When you believe you’re gonna win, you don’t make those kind of mistakes.”

The Hornets were in a position to win in the second half after cutting a nine-point lead to just three. Ke’Monterius Byrd’s two free throws cut Pelham’s deficit to 43-40 heading into the final quarter.

In the fourth quarter, Treun Pace drew a foul on a three-point attempt and sank all three free throws to make it a two-point game with 5:36 left. Dewaun Jones split a pair to cut the Red Devils’ lead to just one with 4:25 left.

The Hornets cut it to one again after a trey by Jones, but they turned it over twice and failed to get a good shot off on the third possession. Randolph-Clay’s Rahemn Price got the outlet pass off the rebound, converted and then came up with a steal before finding Kevin Brown. The Red Devils led 59-54 game with 9.6 seconds left.

The Hornets got a shot to make it a three-point game as time expired.

In the first half, Pelham cut the lead to one after Darrell Starling’s jumper with 1:12 left in the half. The Red Devils pushed the lead to 16-11, but the Hornets clawed their way back and after Starling’s two free throws, Pelham held a 19-18 lead with under a minute to play. Randolph-Clay reclaimed it and went into the half up 20-19 after Brown slipped behind the Hornet defense for two.

Pace led the way for Pelham with 13 points, followed by Starling and Jones with 11 each.