Grafton muscles way to 55-37 victory over Lady Trojans

New Kent's McKenna Mueller (left) and Grafton's Kiara Bomboy race to gain possession of the ball.

Robb Johnson photo

There are times when a record on paper doesn’t match a true team’s performance. For New Kent’s Lady Trojans, they more than likely wished Grafton’s Lady Clippers were one of those teams.

Living up to its 16-1 record, Grafton used discipline defense and drained seven three-pointers en route to a 55-37 Bay Rivers District win over New Kent on Feb. 6.

Early on, Grafton strung together a 9-2 run to kick off the contest. New Kent cut the lead down to four (11-7) after Madison Foley’s trifecta. But a response by Lady Clipper Nikki Gibson provided the visitors a 14-10 lead at the end of the first quarter.

Foley’s second three of the night provided the hosts their first lead of the night (18-17) early in the second quarter. A pair of exchanges on the scoreboard by both teams eventually resulted in Grafton holding a 22-20 lead at halftime.

The visitors slowly began to pull away, stretching their lead out to 31-24 before New Kent’s McKenna Mueller sliced the lead to four once again. But Lady Clipper Maesyn Blaylock’s jumper sparked a 7-1 run that provided the visitors its first double digit lead of the contest (38-28) by the time the third quarter came to the end.

After Katelyn Norman’s lay-in reduced the deficit to below 10 once again, Grafton locked down on defense, resulting in a 17-5 run to close the game out and dropping the Lady Trojans record to 13-7.

New Kent head coach Neko Burson kept things in perspective, pleased with his team’s initial spark to kick off the game.

“We finally came out, especially in the first half, and played with a lot of intensity,” he said. “They played like I know they can, and I’ve spoken all year long in my confidence level in the girls.

“In the second half, it was just adjustments,” Burson continued. “We didn’t make the proper adjustments and for whatever reason the girls got confused. We also let Grafton take too many wide-open shots.”

Mueller’s 14 points led New Kent in defeat. Norman finished with 11, and the duo of Foley and Hailey Hyndshaw both finished with six apiece.