Norcross girls dominate in winning second straight regional crown

DULUTH, GEORGIA – Both Norcross and Peachtree Ridge had offensive weapons on the court Wednesday night in the Region 7-AAAAAAA championship game, but the Blue Devils had more.

The Blue Devils didn’t have much of an answer for Peachtree Ridge’s Sanaa Tripp, who scored a game-high 27 points for the Lions.

But the Lions had no answer for the Norcross duo of Veronaye Charlton and Jania Akins, who combined to score 36 points, and helped lead the Blue Devils to a dominant 57-36 win to claim their second consecutive region championship.

The Blue Devils defense held the Lions not named Tripp to just nine points on the night.

The region championship victory will give the Blue Devils a No. 1 seed in the upcoming state playoffs where they will look to defend their Class AAAAAAA state championship from one season ago.

“The kids are prepared,” Norcross head coach Ashley Luke Clanton said. “I feel like they’ve had a good season. When things haven’t gone right, they’ve been able to pay attention and be able to fix them. I think they’re situated pretty well here. It just comes down to how competitive, how do you rise to the occasion and how lucky you get.”

The Lions put up a great fight against the Blue Devils early on.

After losing both regular-season matchups to the Blue Devils, the Lions found themselves leading 8-7 after a Tripp midrange jump shot late in the first quarter.

But in what proved to be a common theme on the night, the Blue Devils ended the quarter in a flurry. They used a 7-0 run to end the quarter with a 14-8 lead. Akins and Charlton combined to score 12 of the Blue Devils’ 14 points in the quarter.

Clanton said she wasn’t worried about their slow start to the game.

“The beginning of the game is just kind of giving the girls some spacing room to get their footing and to feel things out,” Clanton said. “Once they get their feet under them and get things sorted, they do a nice job. They’re going to play hard all the time, so it’s just a matter of time. They did a nice job tonight.”

Their 7-0 run quickly ballooned to a 13-0 run early in the second quarter after Charlton converted a layup. That gave the Blue Devils a 19-8 lead, their first double-digit lead of the game.

Tripp got the Lions back into the game after scoring five points and dishing off an assist to Aaliyah Hunt to get the lead back down to four points, 19-15 with two minutes left before halftime.

But just like the first quarter, the Blue Devils ended the quarter strong and used a 7-2 run to take a 26-17 lead into the break.

Akins and Charlton combined to score 22 of the Blue Devils’ 26 points in the first half while Tripp was responsible for 11 of the Lions’ 17.

Things only got better for the Blue Devils in the second half.

They quickly regained a double-digit lead and began to pull away even further late in the third quarter. Markiesa Lancaster drilled a three-pointer assisted by Akins to give the Blue Devils a 38-23 lead and by the end of the third quarter, they led 43-28.

They built a 20-point lead early in the fourth quarter after a Charlton floater in the paint and went on to win the game by 21 points.

The Lions only connected on five field goals in the second half, four of which came from Tripp. The junior scored 16 of the Lions’ 19 second-half points.

The Blue Devils will now wait and see who they will host next week in the first round of the playoffs. The Lions will also host a first-round playoff game after locking up a No. 2 seed for the state tournament.