The No. 1-ranked Redan Lady Raiders played with holes in their defense and have a long way to go as a team if they’re going to win the state title, their coach Jerry Jackson said. However, if that’s the case it was hard to tell on Monday night, as the undefeated Lady Raiders hosted and dominated the Northwest Whitfield Lady Bruins 67-35 in the second round of the Class AAAA state playoffs.
The Lady Raiders (30-0), a No. 1 seed out of Region 6, advanced to the quarterfinals for the second consecutive season. They’ll host the winner of Grady (Region 6, No. 4 seed) and Fayette County (Region 5, No. 2) on Wednesday.
The Lady Bruins finished their season 24-4 as a No. 2 seed out of Region 7.
The Lady Raiders fell behind 7-2 early before blitzing Northwest Whitfield with a full-court press that helped lead to 25 steals and a run that put them up 27-15 at halftime. They continued to pull away from there, winning the turnover battle 28-10 while pulling down 17 offensive rebounds that gave them numerous second-chance scoring opportunities.
“We settled down and pushed the ball up the court,” said Brea Elmore, who led all scorers with 18 points. “We’re just staying humble and taking it game by game.”
Redan’s defense limited a Northwest Whitfield team known for its outside shooting to just three 3-pointers and never allowed the Lady Bruins to get into any kind of offensive rhythm.
The Lady Raiders opened the second half on a 12-0 run to put the game out of reach early in the third quarter. Despite the dominating performance, Jackson doesn’t believe his team is playing championship-caliber basketball.
“We’ve got a lot of work to do,” said Jackson, who was an assistant coach on the 2009 team, which won the program’s only state title.
“We had a lot of holes in our defense again tonight, so we’ve just got to fix a lot of things. We were fortunate enough that they didn’t make (the open shots) that they took, because a couple of times we lost our assignments out there.”
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