No. 2 Democracy Prep girls cruise past Desert Pines — PHOTOS
The Democracy Prep girls basketball team continued its dominant start to Class 5A Southern League play with a 71-43 road win over Desert Pines in front of a raucous crowd Friday.
After losing in last year’s state semifinals, Democracy Prep (12-2, 4-0), No. 2 in the Review-Journal’s 5A rankings, has won its league games by a combined score of 297-104.
“We got a chip on our shoulder from last year,” Democracy Prep coach Julius Barren said. “It didn’t end how we wanted to, but we built a tough nonconference schedule, which set us up for league play, and we are putting it together.”
Democracy Prep had everything working for it Friday. Sophomore Aryana Edwards led the Blue Knights with 16 points, and junior Bray’ana Miles added 15.
The Blue Knights scored nine of the game’s first 11 points, but Desert Pines (5-6, 2-3) cut the deficit to 12-9 at the end of the first quarter.
With a lack of size down low, Democracy Prep was getting outrebounded and couldn’t stop any Desert Pines players in the post. Senior center Anaiah Brown led the way for the Jaguars with six points in the first half, all on layups.
In the second quarter, the Blue Knights made an adjustment and started preventing Desert Pines from getting the ball inside, resulting in a 9-2 run to start the period.
Democracy Prep recorded 15 steals in the game, most of them occurring outside the 3-point line.
“We don’t have a lot of size, so we try to adjust to that by being quick and scrappy with our guards,” Barren said.
Democracy Prep extended its lead to 36-24 at halftime, with freshman Ella Smith leading the way with 11 points. She finished with 13.
After the break, the Blue Knights caught fire from downtown, hitting four 3-pointers in the third quarter. Of Edwards’ 11 second-half points, nine came off 3s.
Senior Taveah Oliver scored 15 of Desert Pines’ 19 second-half points after going scoreless in the first half.
