Through the first half of the season, it’s been a tall task for the Orange women’s basketball team to get healthy. With one key reserve out for the year with a knee injury, they probably never will be.
For the first time in two weeks, the Lady Panthers did have its senior starting front line available for the start of the Eastern Guilford Holiday Basketball Tournament, which led to the end of its four-game losing streak.
Behind senior center Erin Jordan-Cornell, who finished with eleven points, eight rebounds and six assists, the Lady Panthers survived a late rally to defeat The Burlington School 54-44 in the opening round of the eight-team tournament on Monday morning in Gibsonville.
Orange (5-8) advances to face Central Carolina Conference rival Walter Williams in the semifinals on Tuesday afternoon. Williams defeated Reidsville 75-50 in the opening round.
The victory marked Orange’s fourth straight win in the Eastern Guilford Tournament. Last year, the event was simply comprised of three games as opposed to a full-fledged tournament. In 2021, Orange defeated Reidsville, Eastern Guilford and Northeast Guilford, the last of which was coach B.J. Condron’s 100th career win.
Jordan-Cornell’s 6-foot-1 frame was able to pass over the smaller Spartans and frequently found sophomore Evelyn George for the game’s biggest baskets. George, who finished with eight points and 14 rebounds, opened the game with a lay-in off a feed from Jordan-Cornell. George canned Orange’s only 3-pointer of the first half off a pass from senior Jada Reed to put the Lady Panthers ahead 7-0 with 4:41 remaining in the first quarter.
Jordan-Cornell connected on consecutive field goals in the second quarter, the latter off a pass from Reed to give Orange its largest lead at 22-8.
The Burlington School coach Porsha Graves started pressing in the second half, which drew the Spartans closer. Guard Xiomara Moser banked in a 3-pointer to start a 9-2 run. Kiya Shavers, who finished with 21 points, hit back-to-back field goals to draw the Spartans to 37-33 with 7:27 remaining.
Afer Kamilah Moore hit a free throw, George beat the Spartans full-court press and passed to Jordan-Cornell, who scored on a lay-in. Reed followed with a steal as she picked the ball away from Aaliyah Coley and laid it in to extend Orange’s lead to 41-37. Following another 3-pointer from Shavers, Nikayla Whitted hit Jordan-Cornell for another lay-up.
A minute later, Jordan-Cornell would return the favor with a permitter dish to Whitted for a three-pointer. Sophomore Maura McMurtry, in her first varsity season, drained a shot from downtown to return the Lady Panther lead to double-digits at 50-39 with 3:49 remaining.
Orange had 19 field goals on 14 assists.
Whitted and Jordan-Cornell each had eleven points to lead Orange. Reed added ten points. Atkins, another first-year varsity player, finished with seven points and six rebounds.
With the win, Orange set up a rematch against Williams. On December 16, the Bulldogs outlasted Orange 50-45 at Bulldogs Gymnasium in what may have been the Lady Panthers’ best game of the year. Orange played without Jordan-Cornell and guard Shannon Murphy, but was still tied with the Bulldogs 32-32 at the end of three quarters.
Most of Orange’s production came outside the arc. They shot 8-of-21 from 3-point range. Atkins had a career-high 12 points, including 4-of-6 shooting from deep. Reed finished with 13 points, but the Bulldogs Bri Scott proved to be the key factor with 16 points as the Bulldogs defeated Orange for the fourth straight time.
The winner of the Orange-Williams game will play in the championship game on Wednesday night at 7PM. Orange’s last holiday tournament championship came in 2016, the most successful Lady Panthers women’s team in school history. Orange captured the Eastern Alamance Holiday Hoops championship with wins over Southern Alamance, Cardinal Gibbons and Bartlett Yancey in Mebane. The win over the Buccaneers came on December 31, 2016, which the team posting for a championship photo just hours before they rang in the new year.