Marianna Holds On For Win Over Malone

 By Clint Cox

The 2009-10 High School basketball season got under way this past Monday night as the Marianna Lady Bulldogs traveled to Malone. The Lady Bulldogs held off a late third quarter run by the Lady Tigers and went on to a 49-38 win. Sharae Williams led the Lady Bulldogs with 14 points while Christina Wynn added 8 and Shamiqua Davies chipped in 7 points.

Marianna jumped out to an early 7-5 lead after the first quarter as Wynn knocked down 5 points for Marianna. Autumn Speigner led Malone with four first quarter points. The Lady Bulldogs began to pull away in the second quarter and a layup by Williams put Marianna up 16-7. Temperance Wooden hit five points in the quarter and her 3 pointer gave Marianna a 24-8 lead. Malone closeed the gap in the last seconds of the first half as Curteeona Brelove, just an 8th grader, hit back to back buckets for the Lady Tigers. Marianna held a 24-12 lead at the half.

In the third quarter Malone started to chip away at the Marianna lead. Venisha Hearns came up with a steal and a layup to make it a 27-16 game. Two baskets by Brelove moments later cut the Lady Bulldogs lead to 28-23. Four free throws by Malone pulled the Lady Tigers to within one point of Marianna with two minutes to play in the third quarter. Marianna had been outscored 15-4 by Malone but the Lady Bulldogs closed out the quarter with a flurry. Tia Bass hit a couple of free throws that were followed by a 3 pointer from Davies. Andreal Johnson hit back to back buckets and Marianna had pushed their lead back up to 10 points by the end of the quarter. Marianna led by as many as 14 points in the final quarter and closed out the game with an 11 point victory.

Malone was led in scoring by Hearns with 13 points and Brelove with 10 points. Vanessa Olds also added 7 points.