Basketball: Lakeview girls smother Athens Academy

GAINESVILLE – It looked as though Lakeview Academy girls basketball coach Buster Brown told his team to start guarding Athens Academy as soon as it got off the bus on Tuesday.

And if he had, the results couldn’t have been much different.

The Lady Lions pressured the Lady Spartans into numerous turnovers – 23 in the first half – as they picked up a 51-31 win at home.

“Our team has begun to take pride in its defense, especially our starters,” Brown said. “[Athens Academy] is a young group, and we wanted to throw some things at them and try to force some things on them.”

The Lady Lions’ defense dominated throughout and allowed Lakeview to ride a slow start offensively that saw Athens Academy take a 6-4 lead midway through the first quarter.

It was the Lady Spartans’ only lead of the game.

The Lady Lions (10-4, 8-1 Region 8-A) took control of the contest with an 11-2 run that spanned the end of the first and start of the second quarter. Most of the baskets in the run came directly off Athens Academy turnovers, though Brittany Moore also buried a 3-pointer during the blitz.

Moore also nailed a trey just before halftime to give Lakeview a 22-11 advantage headed into the lockerroom. Her final basket of the half -- and two free throws from Maddie Haymore -- broke a 6:35 scoring drought in the second quarter for Lakeview.

With the way the Lady Lions’ defense played, it didn’t matter -- though Brown would have been much happier if the first half had gone like the second.

The Lady Lions’ offense exploded in the third quarter, scoring 22 points to take complete control of the contest with a 44-19 lead.

“It’s hard to feel good about a game when you play sloppy,” Brown said. “But at halftime, we realized we’d been too passive and too sloppy, so we tried to light a fire under them.”

Moore and Maddie Haymore certainly listened, as the pair combined for 14 of Lakeview’s third-quarter points – including two more 3-pointers from Moore, who finished with a team-high 14 points.

“Brittany’s a good shooter – better than she believes,” Brown said. “But in the past few games, she’s really been more of a distributor. We’ve got four players who can score, and we don’t really care who does the job for us.”

Haymore also scored 12 in the win, while Louisa Jacobs also added 10.

Emily O’Rear scored a game-high 16 in the loss for Athens Academy, though nine of those points came in the fourth quarter when the game was already decided. Samantha Beasley also scored nine.

Lakeview takes on Prince Avenue on Friday.