All Saints' Academy Captures District Title
Sat. February 02, 2013 at 10:00 p.m. | By Polk Preps Staff
By MIKE FERGUSON
LEDGER CORRESPONDENT
LAKE WALES | All Saints' Academy withstood a furious rally from Walker Memorial on Saturday night to remain undefeated and capture the Class 2A, District 7 girls' basketball title, 40-28.
The Saints appeared well in control as they raced to a 17-2 lead early in the second quarter and built their biggest lead of the game midway through the third quarter at 29-11.
Walker got to within four points on India Washington's three-point playwith just under five minutes to play.
As it has done all year however, All Saints responded.
Diamond Battles, who struggled most of the night, scored the next four points as the Saints closed the game on an 8-0 run to improve to 20-0 on the season.
"I felt our team falling down and I just tried to take it upon myself to bring the team back up," Battles said.
Neither team helped itself from the free-throw line. All Saints shot just 10-for-26 on the night, while Walker was even worse shooting 7-for-24 from the charity stripe.
"We just panicked a little bit. We have kids in seventh and eighth grade that never played in this environment before." All Saints head coach Bob Lepre said. "I think it was a good wake-up call, a good dose of reality".
"We just had to calm down and not let the crowd get to us," added Maddison Wells, who led All Saints with 10 points."
WALKER MEMORIAL (28): Kristelle Lagabon 5 2-7 15, India Washington 2 1-3 5, Keziah Maranan 1 0-2 2, Toni Garcia 0 0-4 0, Natalie Tielves 1 4-8 6. Totals: 9 FG (3 3s) 7-24, 28.
ALL SAINTS (40): Hope Hunter 4 0-0 8, Diamond Battles 2 5-11 9, Melanie Rex 3 3-10 9, Maddison Wells 4 2-2 10, Courtney Krakowski 2 0-1 4, Elizabeth Canto 0 0-2 0. Totals: 15 FG, 10-26, 40.
Walker Memorial 2 7 10 9 — 28
All Saints 14 5 12 9 — 40
