COVINGTON, Ga. – Tuesday’s home matchup between the Newton Rams and the visiting Grovetown Warriors resulted in two more home victories.

While the Lady Warriors pushed for the road upset with a halftime lead, the Lady Rams charged back in the closing 11 minutes of the game to score a 51-42 victory.

The narrative was not the same in the boy’s contest, as Newton dominated the game throughout the stretch. The Rams were led by junior Bryce Jackson, who scored a career-high 31 points in the Rams’ 89-62 win.

Lady Rams pull out victory in final 11 minutes of the game

The first half of Tuesday’s contest was not too kind for the Lady Rams. Going into the game, the Lady Rams were 12-3 and were heavily favored over the Lady Warriors.

However, Grovetown went bucket-for-bucket with Newton, ending the first quarter tied at 9-9. The second quarter was much of the same, as the Lady Warriors went into the locker room at halftime with a 20-19 lead.

Despite a quick three from sophomore London Smith at the start of the third frame, it seemed as if the Lady Warriors were going to build off of their first half momentum, going on a 7-0 run in the opening minutes of the quarter. 

But it was the offensive prowess of Smith, fellow sophomore Mya Perry and senior Camille Files who rallied the Rams to a 9-0 run to close the third frame with a 38-30 lead.

From there, Newton never looked back, as scores from Smith, Perry, Files, Jazmine Flournoy and Zoey Jackson put the game out of reach for Grovetown, giving the Lady Rams their 13th victory of the season.

Head coach Jawan Bailey told The Covington News that the slower start was due to the team attempting to complete goals they had set for themselves in practice.

We’ve been struggling in certain areas so we decided to set goals per quarter related to the concepts we wanted to improve. With those goals we sacrificed some of our free flowing play that we normally start with,” Bailey said. “We will eventually get back to opening games more free flowing with hopefully more discipline in our concepts.”

Bailey noted that building strong team habits will lead the Lady Rams to a successful postseason, which is right around the corner.

“We know we have a talented team but we can be very undisciplined and lazy,” Bailey said.  “Building good habits around our core concepts offensively and defensively is our focus heading through these last few weeks of the regular season.”

Rams dominate in bounce back victory

Going into Tuesday’s contest, Newton head coach Barry Browner told The Covington News that his team was “ready to play” following a loss to region foe Grayson. That turned out to be exactly the case, as the Rams came out hot in the first quarter.

It was junior Bryce Jackson – who was a game-time decision due to illness – who made the largest impact, scoring 15 points in the first quarter alone and leading the Rams to a 23-12 score to end the first frame.

While Grovetown rallied back within five points, it was Appalachian State commit Ted Neal who scored 11 points in the second frame to put the Rams up 42-28 at halftime.

The scoring frenzy continued for Newton, as the Rams went on a 16-0 run in the opening minutes of the third frame. Buckets from Jackson, Neal as well as Jordan Green and Marcus Smith gave the Rams a 71-43 lead to close out the quarter.

With the game out of reach for Grovetown, a ribbon was put on the game thanks to a poster-esque dunk from Smith over a Warrior defender.

In the end, the Rams secured their highest-scoring victory of the season at 89-62.

Jackson led all scorers with a career-high 31 points. Smith also logged a big night on the stat sheet, scoring 17 points and 15 assists.

Head coach Barry Browner stressed the team’s sense of urgency after falling short to No. 1 ranked Grayson a few nights prior. Browner said that Tuesday’s win affirmed Newton’s status as one of the top teams in Georgia.

“We still feel like we’re one of the top teams in the state,” Browner said. Every time we come out here, we prove it… They bounced back tonight and I thought they did very well. I was really proud of them.”