Norcross Swept by North Gwinnett

It was a night the Norcross girls basketball team will prefer to forget. But their first loss of the season to a team from Georgia could turn out to be a learning experience for the state’s No. 1-ranked team in Class AAAAA.

“It depends,” said Norcross coach Angie Hembree. “You can learn nothing from it or you can continue to work hard and improve. It’s one of those things that depends on how you react.”

The defending Class AAAAA champion Norcross girls (13-2, 5-1 in Region 7-AAAAA) were stunned by North Gwinnett 54-45 in Suwanee, and then watched the boys (7-9, 3-3) suffer a 62-58 setback to the Bulldogs. It was a great day for North Gwinnett, which also swept the ninth grade and junior varsity games.

The Norcross girls appeared on the verge of blowing North Gwinnett out of its own gym in the first half, as they jumped out to an early lead and had a 21-10 edge late in the second period. But a 3-pointer by North’s Lexie Brown and a field goal by Ariel Johnson cut the margin to six points and seemed to change the momentum going into the second half.

North took the lead for good at 32-30 and stretched it out to as many as 10 points with 2:36 remaining. Norcross scratched back to within five points (50-45), but North refused to budge. Norcross lost it with poor shooting from the floor (20 percent), from 3-point range (0-for-12) and from the line (13 of 23).

“We missed a lot of everything,” Hembree said. “It was a horrible shooting night; definitely not what we’ve been doing.”

Sophomore Diamond DeShields led the Blue Devils with 17 points. Senior Alex DeMercy added 12 and senior De’Arica Hamby scored 11.

The Norcross boys got behind early, but managed to fight their way back and erase a 10-point lead in the third period. But in the end the North boys were able to use a series of clutch 3-pointers, the last by Clayton Williams with 34 seconds left that put the Bulldogs ahead to stay.

Trailing 60-58, Norcross had a chance to tie with Derrick Herbert shooting a one-and-one with 27.9 seconds left. Herbert missed the front end and North’s Mac Howard cleared the rebound. Norcross then allowed North to kill almost 22 seconds off the clock before fouling to stop the clock. North’s A.J. Clements then made both free throws to ruin any potential last-second heroics.

“I’m proud of the way our guys came back in the second quarter,” said Norcross coach Jesse McMillan. “Hats off to North Gwinnett. They had a great game plan.”

Norcross got 13 points from Josiah Moore, 12 from Chris Bolden, 10 from E. Victor Nickerson, and nine from Herbert.

The loss broke the Devils’ two-game winning streak and dropped them into a tie for fourth place in Region 7-AAAAA.

“The way the league is playing out, it’s the strongest it’s been in eight years,” McMillan said. “You have to be able to win on your own home court and sneak one in on the road when you get a chance.”

Norcross announced it would make up the game at Mill Creek on Feb. 5. No date has been set for the makeup home game against Meadowcreek.