Grayson girls basketball romps in regular season finale against Newton

LAWRENCEVILLE, Georgia — On paper, Grayson’s regular-season finale Friday night wasn’t going to have any implications on what seed they would have entering the Region 4-AAAAAAA tournament next week.

They were locked into the No. 3 seed after Archer won its regular-season finale on Thursday. But what the game did do for the Rams Friday night was serve as a great warmup with them playing at a neutral site.

Playing at Archer High School due to water damage to the Rams' home court, Grayson standouts Samara Saunders and Tatum Brown poured in 22 points apiece and helped lead the Rams to a 71-36 win over Newton to finish off the regular season with wins in eight of their last nine games.

With the win, the Rams finish in a tie for second place in the region with Archer. However, they will enter as the No. 3 seed thanks to the head-to-head point differential going in favor of the Tigers. The Rams and Tigers split in the regular season, but the Tigers out-scored them by eight points overall.

That makes Grayson’s road to a potential region championship much tougher, but Rams head coach Tim Slater said it’s just another hurdle for them to overcome.

“It’s a challenge, but again it’s one of those things at the end of the year where you’ve got to adapt and overcome,” Slater said. “Things never go the way you expect, playoff time. Chalk doesn’t always go the way it’s supposed to. Adapt or die.”

With both Saunders and Brown scoring 22 points, the Rams have to like where they stand as a team heading into the region tournament.

They’re coming off an overtime win against Archer two weeks ago and will likely face them again in the tournament semifinals.

They also played No. 1 seed Brookwood, the state’s No. 3 ranked team, extremely tough this season. They lost a heartbreaker in overtime in their first meeting and lost by eight points in their second meeting.

Confidence for the Rams is high heading into the region tournament, but they know it won’t be easy.

“Everyone is 0-0,” Slater said. “It’s really going to boil down to who really wants to execute, who’ is going to make shots and who is going to listen to the scout because we all know each other. We know what everyone is going to run, so now it’s really who is going to do the little things that are going to get you over the hump and get you a win.”

The Rams were dealt an extremely tough blow before the season ever got started when they learned they would be playing without star junior forward Erin Rodgers, who tore her ACL during the offseason.

As a result, the Rams got off to an up-and-down start to the season, but have played very well over the second half of the season.

They finished the season 13-3 after starting off the season 5-4.

Slater said he’s been extremely proud of the way they have managed the season despite all of the adversity that they have faced.

“Obviously we lost Rogers at the beginning of the year to injury and that was devastating,” Slater said. “But all of these kids are our kids. We don’t have any transfers or transplants. A lot of that connectivity that you see on the floor just comes from us being together as we have. They understand that the strength of the team is the team. We’ve got some really special players, but even they love to share the ball and get assists. That makes us very hard to guard because we’re not one-dimensional. I’m proud of them for that.”

Regardless of how the region tournament plays out, a team ranked in the Power 25 will start its playoff run on the road. Brookwood is currently ranked No. 3 while Archer is ranked 14th and Grayson is ranked 24th.

Within Class 7A, Brookwood is ranked No. 1, Archer is ranked No. 4 and Grayson is ranked No. 8.

Grayson will face Newton again in the first round next Tuesday. The winner will play Archer in the semifinals on Wednesday. The championship game is scheduled for Friday.

On Friday, Grayson led 13-4 at the end of the first quarter and Saunders and Brown combined to score 11 of their 13 points.

The second quarter was no different. Saunders scored nine of her 22 points in the second while Brown scored three more. They combined to score 12 of the team’s 16 points to get the Rams into halftime leading Newton 29-15.

With the score starting to get out-of-hand in the third quarter, Saunders and Brown continued to dominate. They each scored eight more points apiece to give them a commanding 54-29 lead.

The duo played sparingly in the fourth quarter, but Brown managed to score five points, including her one and only three-pointer to give the junior 22 points. Saunders scored all 22 of her points in the first three quarters.