GIRLS' BASKETBALL: North Lenoir stuns Goldsboro

By Ben Coley
Published in Sports on January 6, 2017 9:59 AM

• Print
• Email

The Goldsboro girls' basketball team has had memorable games this season.

Thursday night's matchup against North Lenoir was memorable in a way -- maybe more along the lines of infamous. Missed shot after missed shot plagued the Cougars and translated to a head-scratching 37-30 loss to the Hawks.

"We weren't attacking the zone," said Cougars' head coach Latina Bullock. "We were being very passive. We weren't moving well without the basketball."

Neither team played particularly well in the first half.

After one quarter, North Lenoir led 7-6. Both teams combined for 14 turnovers in those eight minutes.

The second quarter wasn't much of an improvement.

Goldsboro once again tallied six points, but North Lenoir only managed one point -- a single free throw by Jamenia Lynch. And that didn't come until there were 56 seconds left until halftime.

The Cougars led 12-8 after two quarters, but the Hawks made their move in the third stanza.

Goldsboro turned the ball over five times in the third quarter. After North Lenoir's Faith Stroud gave the Hawks a 17-16 lead with 4:30 left in the quarter, the Cougars never regained the lead.

"It wasn't an aggressive zone," Bullock said. "But because we weren't attacking it, we weren't getting good looks to the basket, we weren't driving. We were just more so standing around and watching them passing the ball from one person to the other at the top and not attacking it on the inside."

In total, Goldsboro tallied 22 turnovers in the game, with seven coming in the fourth quarter. North Lenoir recorded 22 turnovers, as well.

Tziah Kelly led the Cougars with 11 points and also grabbed six rebounds. Lynch paced the Hawks with 16 points and nine rebounds.

The 30 points scored by Goldsboro tied a season-low.

Bullock said that the performance did not meet her standards and that she knows they are capable of much more.

"Make my expectations known," Bullock said. "Continue to push them and continue to stay on them. Because like I told them, they could've played a much better ball game than what they did tonight."