FORT WALTON BEACH — Simply put Saturday was not a good night for the Crestview girls basketball team.
Choctawhatchee seniors Brittany Brown and Lauren Day made their final regular season home game one to remember.
Brown scored a game-high 30 points and Day chipped in 22 as the Indians celebrated Senior Night with a 68-31 District 2-6A win over the Bulldogs.
“It’s always good to go out and get a win for the seniors here at home,” Indian coach Don Brown said. “We hate to see them go, but we are looking forward to them moving on to bigger and better things.
“But we still have a lot of work to do the rest of the year. One of our goals was to be number one in the district. We still have to play the tournament, but this was huge for us tonight.”
Brown and Day wasted no time in making their respective presences felt in the game.
In a sign of things to come they teamed up for all of Choctaw’s 23 first quarter points as the Indians (23-0, 8-0) were off and running with a 23-10 lead at the end of the first quarter.
Day scored the first two Indian baskets in the first 25 seconds of the game. Brown scored her first basket at the 7:17 mark in the first quarter and didn’t slow down the rest of the way.
Crestview (9-12, 1-7) finally got on the board with an Arianna Sims basket with 6:54 left in the first quarter.
Brown answered with a 3-pointer to make it 9-2.
Three quick points by Crestview’s Kerrie York pulled the Bulldogs to within four points of the Indians with the score 9-5, but that’s as close as the Bulldogs would get the rest of the way.
Another Brown 3-pointer and back-to-back Day scores pushed the Indian lead to double digits where it stayed the rest of the game.
Brown had 13 points at the end of the first quarter and 20 at the half as Choctaw stretched the lead to 42-18 at the intermission.
Day temporarily cooled off for the Indians with only two points in the second quarter, but Brittany Washington made up the difference scoring seven points in the period for the Indians.
It was more of the same in the third quarter as Brown and Day led the charge. A Brown score with 2:50 left in the period put the Indians up 59-23 and started the running clock as the Indians coasted to the win.
Brown and Day were the only Indian players in double figures.
York led the Bulldogs with 10 points. Sims added eight points and Molly Woodward scored six on a pair of 3-pointers.
Bulldog coach Kathy Combest was hard pressed to find a positive in the lopsided loss, but she was able to find one thing good about her team’s effort.
“They don’t quit,” she said. “They don’t quit."
Randy Dickson is the Crestview News Bulletin’s sports editor. Email him at randyd@crestviewbulletin.com, tweet him @BigRandle, or call 682-6524
This article originally appeared on Crestview News Bulletin: Choctaw too strong for Crestview