Gibbs steps up
- Updated: January 19, 2021
Weaver freshman delivers in the clutch for Lady Bearcats, scores team’s last 12 points in County Tournament win over Donoho
CALHOUN COUNTY TOURNAMENT
Girls Bracket
Tuesday’s game
Weaver 47, Donoho 39
Wednesday’s game
Anniston vs. White Plains, 6 p.m.
Thursday’s games
Ohatchee vs. Pleasant Valley, 4 p.m.
Jacksonville vs. Alexandria, 6 p.m.
Oxford vs. Weaver, 8 p.m.
By Al Muskewitz
East Alabama Sports Today
JACKSONVILLE – D.J. Gibbs couldn’t wait to get home to tell her mother what she’d done.
Normally, the Weaver freshman’s mother is there in the stands, rooting on her daughter and the Lady Bearcats, but on this night Lekenya Gibbs was home under the weather and missed her daughter’s big game.
Oh what a story D.J. will tell her.
She single-handedly delivered the Lady Bearcats a 47-39 victory over Donoho in the Calhoun County Tournament. She scored 16 points, including the last eight of a game that was tied at 39 with 1:53 to play and the Lady Bearcats’ last 12 overall.
“I’m very excited, I’m happy and I’ll go home and tell my mom,” Gibbs said. “I’ll tell her I made 16 points tonight and I took more shots than I usually do. She’s going to be very proud of me.”
Weaver, the seventh seed, will now play second-seeded Oxford Thursday at 8 p.m.
The Lady Bearcats were playing shorthanded with two regulars out of the lineup with injuries. They discovered Gibbs as a viable option as Donoho tried to take the game out of the hands of their most experienced player, Haley Homesley.
Gibbs, who Weaver coach Gary Atchley called “a quiet assassin,” broke the 39-all tie with an inside basket with 1:53 to go to give the Lady Bearcats the lead for good. She then scored six points in the final minute on a bank shot, a free throw and three free throws when she smartly threw up a 3-ball under pressure with 4.6 seconds to play.
“I thought they were going to nickname her ‘Iceman,’ I guess; I’d have to say ‘Top Gun’ was their favorite movie,” Atchley said. “I guess she took this long 3 right here because she knew she’d make free throws. I guess I was hoping they were going to foul here because I was just covering my eyeballs up.
“Look, she’s been stepping up all year. She’s starting to figure out our system and how we’re doing stuff. She practices hard, she gets after it on the floor. I don’t know how great basketball players we are, but we have so much character and we play extremely hard constantly.”
“I just wanted to win for my team and making progress,” Gibbs said. “The last other games I wasn’t doing as well as I wanted to.”
Weaver 47, Donoho 39
DONOHO – Victoria O’Neill 4 3-4 14, Anastasia O’Neill 4 0-0 9, Janie Sills 1 1-4 3, Anna Grace Jones 2 0-0 4, Julie Cleckler 3 2-2 8, Amelia Baker 0 0-0 0, Cailin Campbell 0 1-4 1. Totals 14 7-14 39.
WEAVER – Madison Atchley 4 0-2 8, Taylor Lawrence 0 1-2 1, Tiana Lawrence 3 1-2 7, D.J. Gibbs 4 7-9 16, Haley Homesley 6 1-6 15. Totals 17 10-21 47.
Donoho 9 12 12 6 – 39
Weaver 12 7 11 17 – 47
3-point goals: Donoho 4 (V. O’Neill 3, A. O’Neill); Weaver 3 (Gibbs, Homesley 2). Total fouls: Donoho 17, Weaver 14. Officials: Brown, Bright, Hodges.
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