Published: January 07, 2009 12:03 am      

Lady Dogs cruise to 67-29 win

Williams scores 23 to lead New Waverly girls

ANDERSON — The New Waverly girls basketball squad didn’t start as well as it would’ve liked, but that quickly changed Tuesday night.

The 16th-ranked Lady Dogs opened their District 21-2A contest in the second quarter and put it in cruise control the rest of the way en route to a 67-29 victory over Anderson-Shiro. New Waverly improved to 4-0 in district and 13-4 overall on the season.

After holding a six-point lead in the first quarter, the Lady Bulldogs’ turnovers allowed the Lady Owls to get back in the game and tie the contest at 14 at the end of the period.

“We had to get a feel for them,” New Waverly head coach Eldridge McAdams said. “We needed to see how they were going to react to us so we could see what we needed to do.”

But the Lady Dogs kicked it into high gear, scoring 26 points in the second quarter while holding Anderson-Shiro to just 10. Senior Destiny Jones scored 14 of her 16 points in the second quarter.

Going into halftime with a 40-24 lead, New Waverly settled into a zone defense and the Lady Owls didn’t respond. All Anderson could do was to just pass the ball around the perimeter.

The Lady Owls didn’t force the issue and that was just fine with the Lady Dogs.

“Tonight I feel like we played the best defense we have all year,” sophomore Kayla Williams said. “We did really, really good.”

The Lady Owls scored only five points in the second half and none in the fourth quarter.

Williams led New Waverly with a game-high 23 points. Freshman Myeisha Williams also finished in double figures with 11 points.

New Waverly returns home on Friday to take on Trinity. Game time is set for 6:30 p.m.