Lady Tide drowns Terry Bulldogs 71-49

Chanel Wills gives stellar defensive effort

by Carey Meitzler

The homestanding Picayune Lady Maroon Tide opened the first

round of the Class 4A playoffs with a convincing 71-49 win over

the Terry Lady Bulldogs at Kelly Wise Memorial Gymnasium.  

Terry cameinto the matchup led by the high scoring Chiquita

Harrison who was marking 21 points per game, but Picayune's

Chanel Wills blanketed Harrison holding her scoreless in the

first quarter and limiting her to just 8 points on the night.

Moments after the game, Coach Dennis Peterson praised the

stellar defensive effort from Wills.

"We had received some information that 24 (Harrison) was the

girl we had to stop, so we put Chanel Wills on her and she did

a great job of denying her the ball, boxing her out, and keeping

her away from the goal. I was very pleased with Chanel's effort

on defense."

This was the last game at Kelly Wise for the Lady Tide seniors

and they came out early and made a statement that they did not

intend to let Terry spoil the occasion racing to a 17-5 lead behind

10 first quarter points from Jamelle Clark.  Picayune built a

14 point lead in the second quarter at 33-19, but Terry came

back to cut it to 37-26 at the half, getting a 3 pointer from

Rachenia Powell at the buzzer.

Picayune (25-2) blew the game open in the third quarter as Clark

and Dedrea Magee each scored 8 points to push the lead to 55-34

after three frames.

While Wills was keeping Terry's Harrison under wraps, Dedrea

Magee pumped in 33 points and Jamelle Clark added 24 for

Picayune.  Magee also had 6 rebounds, 5 assists, and 7 steals

while Clark added 15 rebounds.  Breonne Spikes tallied 8 points

and 4 assists.  Along with her stellar defensive effort, Wills scored

4 points and grabbed 6 rebounds. 

Amber Brown led Terry (15-15) with 17 points.

Picayune will play Northeast Jones on Thursday at 7:00pm at

Wayne County.