JEFFERSON—Winder-Barrow’s girls’ basketball team was unable to match the running and gunning of Class AAAAA Brookwood Tuesday afternoon and fell to the Lady Broncos 89-72 in the second round of the Tabo’s Tipoff Classic tournament at Jefferson High School.

The loss dropped the Lady Bulldoggs to 0-2 in the tournament and for the young season and was their second straight game without head coach Brenda Hill, who is recovering from surgery.

Assistant coach Josh Carter is handling the varsity, junior varsity and ninth-grade girls’ teams at the moment, but he indicated that Hill should return to practice Monday and will be on the bench for Tuesday’s game against Loganville at the Dogghouse.

Meanwhile, the Lady ‘Doggs were to have played for seventh place in the Tabo’s tournament Saturday morning against an opponent which had not yet been determined Tuesday evening.

Mimi Hill led the Lady Bulldoggs with 25 points in Tuesday’s loss to Brookwood.  Brittany Witt scored 21 despite missing the last 4:48 of the game after falling on her elbow.

A preliminary diagnosis by the athletic trainer on duty indicated that Witt may have chipped the bone, but further examination was to take place before any determination could be made.

Lauren Hamel contributed 14 points to Winder-Barrow’s cause and five other players scored, but only senior Courtney Milner had more than two points among that group.

Brookwood was led by Katie Mallow with 28 points, 18 of them in the second half when she made four 3-pointers.  Autumn Adams tallied 18, Rebecca Walker had 16 and Rosa Powell had 14 for the Lady Broncos.

Brookwood, which lost its tournament opener 96-91 to Franklin County, is averaging 90 points per game so far in the tournament.

“We didn’t get back very well on defense,” Carter said of his team’s inability to stop the Brookwood fast break which resulted in many easy baskets. “We were a little short-handed and we also got into foul trouble.”

The Lady ‘Doggs dressed only 10 players for the game (two were traveling out of state for the Thanksgiving holidays) and sophomore Delorean Itabiyi picked up her fourth foul with 4:17 left in the third period.  Milner fouled out with 3:11 left in the game.

Winder-Barrow actually led 18-16 after one quarter, but Brookwood exploded for 29 points in the second period and took a 45-39 halftime lead.

Witt drained a 3-pointer on the Lady Bulldoggs’ opening possession of the second half and Hill added a short baseline jumper shortly thereafter to get her team within 45-44.

Brookwood responded with a 9-0 spurt capped by a Mallow 3-pointer and went up by 10, 54-44, with 6:28 left in the quarter.

Buckets by Witt and Hamel trimmed the margin back to six, but Mallow answered with another three.

A free throw by Hill with 5:11 left in the period cut the lead to six again, but Mallow drained yet another three.

A 6-0 run by the Lady Broncos gave them a 14-point lead at 66-52 with 1:49 remaining in the quarter and they still led by 14, 71-57, heading into the final quarter.

Hamel opened the fourth quarter with a field goal to cut the margin to 12, but that was as close as the Lady ‘Doggs could get the rest of the way.

Back-to-back two-point baskets by Mallow late in the game gave Brookwood its biggest lead at 89-69 with 2:18 remaining.

The Lady Broncos did not score again in the game.  Itabiyi banked in a free throw with 1:42 left and Rebekah Autry drove for a layup with 30.5 seconds remaining to account for the final score.