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Prep basketball: Outside shooting dooms Lady Lions
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HIAWASSEE — When they met during the regular season, the Lakeview Academy Lady Lions were able to make eight 3-pointers in an overtime win against Social Circle. During their postseason meeting, the Lady Lions weren’t so fortunate.

Lakeview Academy made only one of the 16 3-point field goals they attempted and were defeated by Social Circle 53-37 on Friday during the semifinals of the Region 8-A tournament at Towns County.

"When we played the first time we were fortunate to beat them because we made shots," Lakeview coach Buster Brown said. "We knew coming into this game that we wouldn’t be able to do that."

While the poor outside shooting was disappointing for Lakeview’s coach, the most bothersome aspect of the game was on the defensive end, where Lakeview had no answer for the dribble penetration of Social Circle’s Sequoya Thurmond.

A starter for the Lady Redskins throughout the year, Thurmond was forced to come off the bench due to an illness suffered from the mountainous roadways that lead to Towns County.

Lakeview probably wishes that the illness would have sidelined her for the whole game.

Thurmond entered the game midway through the first quarter and lit up the Lakeview defense for 10 points in the first half and finished the game with 21 points and six rebounds.

The majority of those points came via dribble penetration.

"Against Social Circle if you give up dribble penetration than you are going to have trouble," Brown said.

Despite the outside shooting woes and inability to contain Thurmond, Lakeview was able to keep the game close throughout the first three quarters,
primarily because of the play of Louisa Jacobs.

With her team down by four points coming out of the half, Jacobs single handedly prevented the game from getting away from Lakeview in the third quarter by scoring 10 of her team-high 19 points.

"We focused at halftime on getting the ball inside more," said Jacobs, who also pulled down 10 rebounds in the loss. "We were really struggling from the outside."

Jacobs’ effort in the third went for naught, as Social Circle opened up the fourth quarter on a 8-2 run that increased its lead to 10 points, the largest lead of the night and a lead that Lakeview was not able to overcome.

Jacobs admitted that the loss hurt.

"We really wanted to win this game," she said. "No one expected us to be here and we wanted to prove people wrong."

Brown also said that the loss was disappointing, but he knows his team must get over the outcome.

"You have to get past this and get it out of your system," Brown said. "If you don’t you’ll end up being the fourth seed (coming out of the region) and that’s what we don’t want."

Lakeview Academy will play Towns County or Hebron Academy at 4 p.m. today in the third-place game of the tournament at Towns County.

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