By Thomas Sellers Jr.
Heading into January, no team will overlook the Brighton Lady Cardinals. Brighton featured an 11-1 record coming into their Dec. 19 showdown with the Bolton Lady Wildcats as part of the 2018 William Osteen Christmas Classic in Millington. The Lady Wildcats were looking to join the ranks of Covington by giving Brighton a defeat leading 27-23 at the break. “In the first half we started off sloppy,” Brighton guard Sylvia “Bug” Jones acknowledged. “Coming out at halftime, Coach drew up a play and told us where we were messing up and what we had to correct. We had to come out with high intensity. We started making good passes and playing together as one. Things just fell into place and we got in the double bonus. We won with free throws.” Brighton Head Coach David Wampler’s squad executed down the stretch to improve their record to 12-1 with the 54-50 win over Bolton. After a the Lady Wildcats earned a 14-13 first lead, Bolton jumped ahead 27-21 behind the hot shooting of Amelia Simpson. Simpson’s 6 points kept Bolton ahead of Brighton. The Lady Cardinals got the last highlight of the first half when Jones hit a bounce pass to a cutting T. Brown for a layup. The Lady Cardinals were primed to erase Bolton’s 4-point advantage in the third quarter. Jones hit a bucket and made a pair of foul shots to deadlock the game at 27-27. Brown gave Brighton the lead with a pair of free throws. Then her fellow senior MG Smith made a basket in the post to make the tally 31-27 in favor of Brighton. The Lady Cardinals led 34-29 after a Demiyah Gatlin triple. Brighton largest lead in the period came at 43-35 after another Gatlin score. Bolton only trailed 43-38 heading into the fourth quarter after a Keyanna Logan basket. Brighton tried to create more seperation in the early moments of the final quarter when Brown scored on a three-point play to make the score 46-38. The Lady Wildcats responsed with a 7-0 run featuring a Larissa Wright three-pointer. Only ahead 46-45, Jones snapped Bolton momentum with two of her game-high 21 points. Brighton outscored Bolton 8-5 down the stretch to earn the victory. “It’s been going good,” Jones said of the season. “We’re now 12-1 and we just beat Bolton. In practices, we’ve been having rough practices because we’re still trying to find ways to fix things so we can execute better in games.” Brown said the William Osteen Classic helped last week and this week’s Dragon Fire Tournament in Collierville will assist in Brighton’s development even more.
“We’ll go to this tournament next week and I want us to give it our all,” she concluded. “We’ll see what we’re made of in the Dragon Fire. Then hopefully we can take positive momentum into districts.”
