With aggressive defense, solid board work and determination the young Lee-Davis girls basketball team accomplished a monumental feat on Friday night; defeating rival Atlee 57-50.

  To say that the Confederates victory was a long time coming would be a drastic understatement. In fact, few players on Lee-Davis’ team were even in school at any level the last time the C-feds came away with a win over the Raiders.

  “It’s amazing,” said junior Logan Bryan who has seen her fair share of losses to the Raiders. “It’s the second time in 19 years we won against Atlee and it’s really good.”

  Confederate juniors Casey Price (15 points) and Trina Gardner (10 points) led a Lee-Davis balanced attack in which nine players reached the scoring column.

  Though occasionally plagued by sloppy play, at times the C-feds down-right impressive on both offense and defense, thanks not only to long-time players such as Gardner, Bryan, Meredith Holmes and Chandler Thomas but sophomore Kori Hughes and a pair of talented freshmen, Imani Boothe and Caroline Naumann.

  “Teams don’t know how to scout us because if somebody’s off I can put somebody else in and they get the job done,” said Lee-Davis head coach Alvin Puller. “So there’s not one key player that you can key on. I’ve got 10 girls that I can play at any time.”

  But it was Price, in her first full year on varsity, who was most impressive. “I think she’s getting that, ‘I can do it in softball, why not do it in basketball’,” Puller said. “She’s getting that feeling that my part on the team is to take the ball hard to the hole and finish.”

  Atlee was at a severe disadvantage, playing without senior point guard Taylor Henderson who suffered a knee injury in Patrick Henry’s holiday tourney and is lost for the season. Henderson was not only the team’s leading scorer but also their floor general, therefore controlling the ball against the stalwart Lee-Davis defense was a key component in the Raiders’ downfall.

  Atlee’s Karlie Suber and Cierra Shelton shouldered the load in Henderson’s absence. Suber led all scorers with 16 points while Shelton added 14 points but turnovers and fouling on defense were the Raiders undoing.

  Atlee ran out to a quick 6-2 lead by utilizing the strength of Shelton’s post play, but then Lee-Davis found their footing midway through the first. A score inside by Naumann was followed by a three from the right wing by Thomas to give the Confederates a 7-6 lead and force an Atlee timeout.

  The Raiders attempted to slow the C-fed penetration but instead repeatedly fouled sending Lee-Davis to the line where they converted 5-of-5 along with a basket from Hughes (6 points) to jump out to a 14-6 lead.

  Suber scored five points in the final minute of the first to trim the C-fed lead to three but Lee-Davis quickly answered. In the second quarter the Confederates went on an 11-2 run, started with a rainbow three from the right wing by freshman Imani Boothe (7 points) and capped by a three from the left wing by Gardner.

  Shelton momentarily stopped the bleeding with a three from the top of the arc to trim Lee-Davis’ lead to 25-16. But over the next three minutes, Atlee committed six fouls on shot attempts while only scoring two points.

  The Confederates did their part to keep Atlee in the contest by going 3-of-8 from the line while missing the front end of two 1-and-1s. For the game, Lee-Davis shot a disappointing 54 percent from the line, making only 17 or 31 attempts.

  Lee-Davis held their largest lead of the game, 39-25 on a basket from Price 30 seconds into the second half but then it was they who took the fouling role. Over the remainder of the period, the C-feds did not make another field goal while committing seven fouls which allowed Atlee to climb back into the contest, trailing 45-36 heading into the fourth.

  With 5:45 to play, Atlee trimmed the lead to 47-42 on put-back baskets from Courtney Booth and Suber. But foul problems for the shorthanded Raiders began to mount as Clarke Tyler picked up her third, fourth and fifth over a 24 second span and Atlee went scoreless over the next three minutes.

  “It was kind of nerve-racking with us not scoring and seeing the lead go from 11 to five,” Price said. “But hitting some clutch free throws and getting some layups boost your confidence.”

  Lee-Davis widened the margin to 53-42 on a three by Gaines followed by a steal and layup from Boothe.

  The foul bug reemerged for the C-feds over the final three and half minutes of play. Steph Staples and Suber combined to go 8-for-8 from the line to pull the Raiders within three, 53-50 with two minutes to play.

  “We slacked in the defense and we never should have,” Gardner said. “We slacked on the rebounding and the boxing out and the fouls should never have happened.”

  But Lee-Davis got two big plays down the stretch from Price to seal the win. Price picked up a loose ball on the Raiders’ end of the court and fed a wide open Gaines for a score. Price then forced a five second call defending Shelton to give the ball back to the C-feds in the final minute of play.

  “That was really nice,” Price said. “I just stayed on her, did what coach told me to do.”

  Logan Bryan sealed the win with a pair of free throws.

  For a Lee-Davis team that has repeatedly come up short over the past decade, often due to lack of confidence, the win over Atlee could be a key that unlocks the young squad’s potential. 

  “It helps tremendously,” Puller said. “I think the monkey has fell off our back. We beat Atlee. It’s a milestone for Lee-Davis because we never do it. I think we’re just going to bloom and play the way we can play. We’ve got great potential.”

  Gardner agreed. “For many years we were known as Lee-Davis, the team that couldn’t get to the top and we’re a young team so we’ve got that hunger,” she said. “We want to get back in the regions. We want to go to be No. 1 again.”

  Said Price; “We can be really good. We’re just believing now and doing what we had to do all along.”
 
LEE-DAVIS 57, ATLEE 50
ATLEE (2-7, 0-3 Capital): Suber 16, Staples 6, Barry 2, Shelton 14, Tyler 6, Booth 6
LEE-DAVIS (5-4, 1-2): Winston 1, Holmes 6, Thomas 3, Bryan 6, Price 15, Boothe 7, Gardner 10, Naumann 3, Hughes 6
Atlee………........ 11 14 11 14 - 50
Lee-Davis…......... 14 23   8 12 - 57
3-pointers: Atlee- Suber , Shelton 2. Lee-Davis- Thomas, Boothe, Gaines