The Jefferson girls don’t have a senior on the roster, but the Dragons are back on top of the Region 8 standings again and positioning themselves to make a potential move when the state tournament begins next month.
“We’re still young,” coach Greg Brown said. “We don’t have any seniors, but we did have high expectations. It’s just because of who we are. But we’re still pretty young as a team as a whole.”
The No. 5-ranked Dragons (14-3) have won the region title in four of the last five seasons under coach Greg Brown, who is in his sixth season at the helm. Jefferson took a big step toward earning the No. 1 seed for the region tournament by beating rival Loganville 36-23 on Friday. Those two have mixed it up on a regular basis in recent years, with Jefferson snatching the region title from the Red Devils on a buzzer-beater a year ago.
Jefferson isn’t an imposing team. There’s not a six-footer and most of the girls are in the 5-6- to 5-8 range, but they play hard-nosed defense, score often by creating turnovers and have some solid outside shooters.
“We share the ball really well and we get out on transition and run,” Brown said. “Our defense creates turnovers, which creates easy baskets. That’s kind of our identity.”
The defense was evident against Loganville when the Dragons scored the first 12 points of the game and led 23-2 with 6:24 left in the first half. Loganville tried to get back in the game and drew as close as nine points in the third quarter, only to have Jefferson reel off 10 straight to put the game away. From that point Jefferson was content to slow the pace, run some four corners and eat the clock.
“We feel like we’ve got good depth,” Brown said. “So we want to use it and we try to get the game going as fast as we can with the kids that we’ve got and it just wears on the other team. It might not happen early but by the end of the game we’ve usually got them physically and mentally worn down.”
Top players include juniors Skyler Brady and Delaney Dewitt, who are both gifted outside shooters, along with freshmen Karlee Law and the dynamic Michel Robins, who may be a star in the making. Robins is a 5-foot-6 ball of energy, a turnover creator who never seems to wear down.
Jefferson has been without starting point guard Emeri Billings (broken finger) and forward Eve Knight because of injuries. Both are expected to return before the end of the month.
“It’s a tribute to these other kids who have been getting some experience during this time,” Brown said. “I don’t think the environment (at Loganville) was too much for them. I thought, for the most part, they played really steady.”
Brown said his team needs to improve its rebounding. “We’re not a real big team, so we’ve we’ve got to continue to focus on rebounding and getting better at that.”
Jefferson returns to region play on Tuesday at home against Heritage.
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