BAKER — Ask Baker girls basketball coach Brian Wagner and he’ll be the first to tell you there’s no such thing as an ugly win.
“A win is a win,” he said. “I had a buddy tell me, ‘Winning is the best deodorant,’ and it certainly is. It (a win) leaves you smelling good the rest of the week.”
Baker’s 55-42 win over Central on Monday might not have been a thing of beauty, but Wagner wasn’t about to complain.
“We had some bright spots,” he said. “We had a very good third quarter.
Central has a tendency to be physical and we have a tendency to be aggressive as well. I think it (the uneven pace of the game) had to do with the fact that we missed some easy shots and threw the ball away.”
Even with a slow start shooting the Gators (14-6) jumped to a 9-0 lead in the first five minutes of play.
Cassidy Anderson, who led all scorers with 20 points, scored the game’s first basket with 7:13 left in the first quarter. A Sarah Hudson 3-pointer with six minutes left in the period made it 5-0 and a Kathryn Quigg free throw made it 6-0.
Anderson finished off the run with a 3-point basket of her own and Baker led 9-0 with 2:44 left in the first quarter.
The Jaguars finally got on the board with 2:28 remaining in the first quarter when Makayla Simmons scored a basket for the first two of her 18 points.
Baker led 12-7 at the end of the first quarter and stretched the lead to 27-16 at the half as Bethany Chestnut took over for the Gators scoring seven of her 15 points in the quarter.
Chestnut remained hot in the early stages of the third quarter as she scored Baker’s first two baskets in the period.
Anderson then took over again for the Gators scoring six points in the third as Baker led 44-24 after three.
Central tried to threaten in the fourth quarter, but the Jaguars couldn’t get the Gator lead into single digits as Baker held off the charge to take the win.
The win kept the momentum going for the Gators as they prepare for next week’s District 2-1A tournament at Freeport.
“The idea is to peak at the right time and certainly we have played our best basketball in the last week-and-a-half,” Wagner said. “Hopefully we can continue that."
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: Baker girls continue winning ways