— Though the season didn’t end the way they wanted it to, Northwest Whitfield’s Lady Bruins basketball team can look back and see a lot of success.
They reached the state championship game for just the second time in school history and the first time in 20 years. They lost to Southwest DeKalb, 65-45, in the Class 4A finals — it was the Panthers’ third-consecutive state title — but what they were able to accomplish up to that point is worth noting.
Here are some highlights of the Lady Bruins’ season:
• After starting the season 1-2 in a tough three-game stretch against elite competition at a Thanksgiving holiday tournament in Gwinnett County, the Lady Bruins reeled off 23 consecutive wins. The streak included an undefeated regular season region record of 14-0. They would only lose two more games the rest of the way and finished 29-4, the most wins in school history. Their previous best win total was 28, set last year when they reached the state quarterfinals.
They were road warriors, going 18-4 away from Tunnel Hill. They were 11-0 at home.
• Northwest had a plethora of quality wins during the season. The Lady Bruins beat two 5A schools in Alpharetta (57-43) and McEachern (59-54).
They beat eight teams during the regular season that ended up reaching the state playoffs, including Alpharetta, McEachern, Southeast Whitfield (twice), Sequoyah (twice), Madison County, Forest Park, Hillgrove and Rome. What’s more impressive: save Rome and one of the Southeast games, all of those wins were on the road.
Twice they won against the No. 1-ranked team in the state, beating then-undefeated Rome, 68-58, on Feb. 9 in the next-to-last game of the regular season and Mays, 57-53, on March 3 in Atlanta in the second round of the state playoffs.
To reach the state championship game, they beat No. 2-seeds Chamblee and Mays and No. 1 seeds Madison County and Dutchtown — again, with all wins coming away from Tunnel Hill.
Playoffs aside, it’s always good for the Lady Bruins when they beat area rival Dalton twice in a season, which they did for the third year in a row.
• Three players from the Lady Bruins’ starting five either signed with or verbally committed to a college team in November. Christy Robinson, a 6-foot-3-inch senior post, who was the 2008 Daily Citizen All-Area Player of the Year, signed with Samford (Birmingham, Ala.). Five-foot-four point guard Baleigh Coley signed with Columbus State. And 6-5 junior post Quaneisha McCurty, the 2009 All-Area Player of the Year, verbally committed to Big East powerhouse Louisville, which reached the Final Four last year.
• Lady Bruins coach Margaret Stockburger notched her 300th career win when the Lady Bruins defeated Hiram, 72-37, in Tunnel Hill. Doubling the win’s sentimentality for Stockburger was that it came on her birthday. In her 14-year career, Stockburger is 308-95.
Although the aforementioned accomplishments were the most outstanding for the Lady Bruins this season, there were countless other highlights.
Like Coley drilling a half-court shot just before halftime against Chamblee in the opening round of the state playoffs, which gave Northwest the necessary momentum to control the game in the second half.
And Jordi Cook’s performance against Ducthown in the semifinals, when she notched a career-high 27 points that included 7-for-9 shooting from 3-point distance.
Bottom line, the 2009-10 basketball season was probably the most successful season in Lady Bruins history.
Adam Krohn is a sports writer for The Daily Citizen. You can write him at adamkrohn@daltoncitizen.com or follow him on Twitter @adamkrohn.
