When the East Hall Lady Vikings trailed by 10 points at the half to North Hall in the Lanierland tournament final, Morgan Jackson didn’t panic.

In the face of an early onslaught from the Lady Trojans, neither she nor her teammates hung their heads in defeat.

Instead, Jackson came out of the locker room, quickly knocked down two 3-pointers to put East Hall (7-0) squarely in the fight for the Lanierland championship, which it eventually captured with a 64-57 win in the game.

Jackson finished with 34 points in that game and notched 27 points and nine rebounds in the team’s Lanierland opener against Johnson. In her quietest game of the week, she scored 11 points in a win against Gainesville to record her 1,000th career point.

For her efforts, she has been selected as the Times Athlete of the Week.

East Hall coach Joey Rider noted Jackson’s will to win as a major factor in her ability to come through in the clutch for the Lady Vikings.

“I really think the biggest thing for her is that she just wants to win,” Rider said. “Her intention was to win that game, and she was going to battle and compete at the highest possible level until the game was in hand. That didn’t happen until the end. She had just made up her mind that we weren’t going to lose.”

Jackson stated the same thing immediately following the team’s victory.

“This was my last Lanierland, and just weren’t going to lose this one,” she said.

Rider said it was this determination for victory, rather than individual statistical success, that has Jackson going in the right direction.

“She’s determined to win, not just score,” he said. “She played great defense and rebounded the ball. Her objective wasn’t to score 34 points, it was to win. That’s what stands out to me. When you get to that point, the break-out performances will come.”

And those performances have become a common occurrence for a player that has been a starter on the team for four years. She is one of the leading scorers on the team and has already signed to play at Georgia State in 2012.

She’s certainly put in the work to get to this point, Rider said. She has been blessed with superior physical ability, but has worked hard to develop a skill set that is difficult to match up against.

“She’s a great shooter,” Rider said of Jackson. “She’s so versatile because she’s long. She presents matchup problems for other teams because she has the height of a post player, but plays like a guard.”

She puts in countless hours on the court to improve her game, he added. What it has all added up to is an undefeated team angling for a special season down the road. Rider noted that wins, while nice, aren’t as important right now as they will be later in the season, and he hopes Jackson and the rest of the Lady Vikings continue to improve and meet the challenges as they come.

“Our goal isn’t to go undefeated,” Rider said. “Our goal is to win a region championship. Our goal is to be playing our best basketball when we get to the region tournament in February. We want to play our best, and I don’t think we’ve gotten there yet.”