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Sports

Pace Too Much for Glascock County

Lady Knights win big, behind Haley Zwecker's career high 31 points

With a trip to the state playoffs on the line, a big night by junior point guard Haley Zwecker sparked the Pace Academy girls to a 67-34 home win over Glascock County  Tuesday night.

 Zwecker scored a career high 31 points and rolled up 10 steals, six rebounds and five assists. She finished 14-for-21 from the floor on a night when the rest of her teammates struggled to hit their shots.

“We missed a lot of shots from the outside. They were open. The shots just weren’t falling, except for Haley's. She had a career night,”  Pace coach Regina Tate said.

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Despite the margin of victory, Tate was not happy with her team’s defense. “We were able to pressure their guards, but we weren’t able to stop No. 30 [Glascock County’s Brooke Stephens]. The help defense wasn’t there, and we didn’t do a good job with our double-teams.” Stephens led the Panthers with 22 points, almost all of them coming in the post.

Aside from Zwecker, the Lady Knights struggled from the floor. They connected on only six of 24 field goal attempts in the first quarter, but Pace still managed to take a 13-10 lead. They followed that up with a 6-for-24 effort in the second quarter, but found themselves up 28-14 at the half. Kaitlyn Dinkins hit two three-pointers in the quarter to help Pace extend its lead.

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Pace broke the game open in the third quarter as junior forward Morgan Batey scored nine of her 14 points and dominated in the paint. She finished with a game-high 16 rebounds and barely missed out on a triple-double with nine steals.  Pace led 48-20 at the end of the quarter.

Zwecker took over in the fourth quarter, going 5-for-5 from the field and 2-for-2 from the line. Tate took her starters out with 3:13 remaining, and Glascock County coach Richard Moye followed suit a few moments later.

Pace finished the night just 29-for-82 from the floor. Dinkins was 3-for-14 from three-point range, but most of the shots were barely off target, many of them going in and out of the rim. Despite those numbers, she had an excellent floor game, finishing with eight rebounds, six assist and three steals.

With the win, Pace improves to 23-5 and will face Southwest Atlanta Christian Academy in the opening round of the GHSA state tournament. As the top-seeded team out of Region 9-A, SACA (24-4) will play host to the Lady Knights. The Warriors defeated Pace 64-51 in their only head-to-head contest this season.

“They have good post players, and they have good guards as well,” said Tate. “But we’re going into Friday planning to win. The key will be defense, and rebounding. We have to find a way to box out their players.”  Tipoff  is 6:30 p.m. Friday.

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