Gatewood’s Lady Gators basketball team lost its GIAA Region 2-AA tournament game 54-29 last Tuesday to Piedmont Academy.
However, the Gatewood girls’ season is not over yet, as they still enter GIAA Class AA state playoffs seeded 10th among 14 teams. Gatewood will face No. 7 Trinity Christian this Tuesday (past print deadline) in Dublin.
In the game versus Piedmont, Gatewood trailed 28-12 at halftime and appeared competitive only in the third quarter when the Lady Cougars managed a 12-11 advantage.
Gatewood head coach Jordan Walters said “turnovers and missed assignments” doomed her team’s chances last week.
“Defensively we didn’t take care of the ball very well. Lots and lots of turnovers; I think we had 24 of them, just balls hitting our hands and real sloppy passes, 50/50 balls that they ended up with because we didn’t take care of things defensively,” she said.
“We had some great possessions, but then I felt like we had other possessions taking breaks. And when we took those breaks, Piedmont outhustled us to multiple loose balls and executed on them and we just couldn’t get back in the ball game.”
Walters appeared somewhat baffled by her team’s ineffectual play, especially after putting together a solid effort, despite an 8-point loss to Brentwood in the final regular season game a few days earlier.
“When we played Brentwood, we had a confidence and a spark about us, knowing what we were about to go do, how to execute the game plan and I just felt like tonight it was lacking,” Walters said. “I don’t feel like mentally we were in it. I don’t feel like we executed the game plan very well at all. And then to me, we looked hesitant and scared, which Friday we did not. So, I’m not really sure where the switch flipped, but that to me was huge in the ballgame.”
If Gatewood gets past Trinity Christian, its second-round playoff opponent would be Brentwood, which has a first-round bye.
No. 1-seeded Piedmont also has a bye to start the playoffs and will face either Citizens Christian Academy or Furtah Prep at home in Monticello on Friday.