AHOSKIE – It took a while to get the juices flowing, but the Gates County Lady Barons eventually beat the Northampton-East Lady Rams 48-36 Wednesday night.

The two teams battled for third place in the Roanoke-Chowan News-Herald Holiday Classic sponsored by United Country Joe Murray Realty, but it soon became clear that it was a battle between two players on the court.

Northampton’s Chiquita Swain and Gates County’s Jalisa Bradley stuffed the stat line and provided fireworks all night.

Swain scored the first six points of the game, while Jessica Price added two to helped push the Rams out to an 8-2 lead with two minutes left in the first quarter.

Bradley and the Lady Barons woke up and went on a 21-7 run to end the first half up 23-15.

Javon Parks hit two big three-pointers for the Barons to stretch the defense and give Bradley more room to operate in the post.

During that stretch, Bradley scored eight points and snatched 10 rebounds.

Swain countered Bradley in the first half, scoring 11 points and taking five rebounds.

One of the Lady Rams’ halftime adjustments was figuring out the press of the Lady Barons.

The Rams seemed to handle the press better in the third quarter and fought back to trim the deficit to six, 32-26.

Destinee’ Hurdle and Jessica Hart took over the scoring load for Gates in the third and fourth quarters. Hurdle scored 12 points in the second half, while Hart added six.

Swain scored the first two points of the fourth quarter to make the score 32-28, but that would be as close as the Rams would get.

The Gates County combination of Bradley, Hurdle and Hart added 16 points in the fourth to topple the Rams 48-36.

Swain and Price powered the Rams in the post with a combined 12 rebounds and six steals.

Jalisa Bradley turned in the most impressive evening with 13 points, 16 rebounds, seven steals and two assists.

Gates coach Carolyn Hurdle was pleased with the efforts her team displayed.

“We played with more focus and played together,” she said. “We learned a great deal from the loss to Bertie the night before.”

The Barons took that knowledge and turned the tables on the Rams behind a huge night from Bradley.

Hurdle said, “The team follows the lead of Jalisa and Destinee’. They both feed off each other.”

Hurdle hopes the win will help her team steadily improve heading into January.

“Now we see if we play with confidence and as a team, we can get tough victories,” she closed.

Lady Barons (48): Destinee’ Hurdle n 15, Jalisa Bradley n 13, Javen Parks n 10, J. Hart n 6, D. Hayer n 2; M. Jordan n 1, T. Dillard n 1

Lady Rams (36): Chiquita Swain n 19, J. Price n 6; D. Peebles n 6, J. Parker n 3, B. Boone – 2