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© St. Petersburg Times, published January 31, 2003
SEFFNER -- The offense was outstanding, the defense dominating and the final result convincing.
But Armwood coach Don Fields still elected to be stingy with his compliments after his Hawks defeated Brandon 68-41 on Thursday night, a victory that clinched the No.2 seed for the Class 4A, District 9 tournament.
"We're either a very good team or one that stinks up the place," Fields said. "(Tonight) I thought we played our "B' game. Overall, I was pleased. But our defense gave up some points that it shouldn't have."
That wasn't the case early. The Hawks scored the game's first 17 points and forced Brandon to miss its first 20 shots in the opening 91/2 minutes to win their final district game.
Ashley Armstrong, Deanna Jackson and Elizabeth Stevens combined for 45 points as the Hawks (16-8, 8-4) handed Brandon (10-10, 3-9) its sixth loss in seven games. Jackson scored nine of her 15 in Armwood's opening 17-0 spurt. Armstrong poured in 12 of her 17 in the second half as the Hawks led by as many as 35.
"We don't like to single out certain players on this team, but I was happy to see a couple of my girls step up," Fields said.
Brandon, expected to be the No.6 seed, made four of its 34 first-half shots. The Eagles did pull within 24-13 late in the second quarter, but Armwood scored the game's next 16 points to pull away for good. Armwood also had a 10-0 run in the fourth period.
Nikki Turner paced Brandon with 19 points and Roni Carithers contributed 12.
"We've been able to score points, but our problems have been on defense," Brandon coach Joe Brown said. "We tried different things on defense. Nothing seemed to work."