Finally in full force, Socastee girls roll past Conway

Ginger Ford is watching her offense come alive at just the right time.

The Socastee girls basketball coach, after seeing her team reach the 50-point mark just once its first 16 games, has now seen it in back-to-back contests and three of the last five after a 58-41 win over Conway on Tuesday night. Not coincidentally, Ford is still getting used to having a full complement of players.

“I look down at my subs and think ‘Which one of you needs to go in?’ ” Ford said. “So yeah, I feel a little spoiled. It’s making us play harder at the positions. We can play harder. We’re playing really hard right now. We’re tough and all-out, and we’re expending a lot of energy with the subs.”

Up until five games ago, Kira Bell, maybe the Braves’ best player, was sitting out while recovering from surgery to repair a torn anterior cruciate ligament in her left knee. A couple weeks before that, point guard Amber Rutledge re-joined the team after sitting out her junior year.

And it’s hard to forget that Socastee played almost all of last year’s region slate with just six varsity players. The Braves made the playoffs as a three seed, but it wasn’t realistic for anything to happen once they got there.

The last two weeks are starting show the higher end of what is possible.

Mia Angelo, now able to play the off guard position with Rutledge back, scored 19 points against Conway. Shayla Baldwin added 10 of her 15 in the first half. Bell, who provided a scary moment when she went down in the second quarter before returning after halftime, finished with 12.

“We’ve been playing together since middle school, so we have our chemistry back,” Baldwin said. “It’s different. It’s good to have everything back and healthy because we’re stronger as a team.”

They certainly looked different than their last meeting with Conway. On Jan. 12, the Tigers won 38-32 that started an ascent into the top half of the region.

“They’re good at what they do,” Conway coach Shamae Hemingway said. “They beat us last year. I think it comes down to the precision of it. I think boxing out and rebounding really killed us.”

Unlike a big night against Green Sea Floyds that resulted in 60 points in the season opener, the most recent outburst held plenty of real meaning. Socastee (11-10 overall) joined the Tigers (9-6) in the second-place spot in Region VI-AAAA at 4-3. Ford’s team may be at a disadvantage, if only because it still has to play undefeated Sumter again.

Then again, a full-fledged Braves team is just starting to figure out what it can do.

“With the experience they had last year, we felt this was a really solid playoff team in the top of our region with those three healthy,” Ford said. “And the addition of Amber coming back was a plus.”

This story was originally published February 2, 2016 at 10:58 PM with the headline "Finally in full force, Socastee girls roll past Conway."