James Clemens girls withstand furious Florence rally, win 57-53

Hannah Parks surveys the Falcons defense in basketball action against Florence Dec. 2 (Record Photo/Nick Sellers)

By Nick Sellers | Staff Writer

MADISON – At one point in the fourth period, the James Clemens girls varsity basketball team was thumping Florence 55-37 and the game seemed to be in hand.

Several unforced turnovers and minutes later, the Jets scored enough points to scrape out a 57-53 victory over the visiting Florence Falcons on Dec. 2.

“We didn’t finish the way we should have finished,” head coach Amber Deline said. “We had a lot of unforced turnovers and didn’t take care of the ball at the very end. Last two or three minutes we had too many turnovers.”

The Jets stormed out to a 15-7 lead with 1:28 to go in the first period and played to a 15-15 tie at the end of that period en route to a 27-27 halftime knot.

Senior forward Kailey Beckett had 19 of those points for James Clemens and finished with 28 points.

The second half started off with two straight three-pointers by the Jets and an 8-0 run before the first timeout. Florence was down 50-35 at the start of the fourth quarter.

“I thought we started the second half well; I think we were on an 8-0 run and I was pleased with the way we came out third quarter,” Deline said.

Angel Benson finished with nine points on the evening for James Clemens and Hannah Parks chipped in six.

“A win’s a win, but obviously we made a lot of mistakes down the stretch,” Deline said. “A few more minutes and it may have turned out differently.”

With a pre-Thanksgiving tournament victory at Ardmore and win over Florence, the Jets start region play against Sparkman Dec. 9.