WINDSOR – Don’t blink!

If you did you might have missed some scoring in Bertie High School’s 80-40 girls basketball rout of Weldon on Tuesday night.

Combined with their 74-44 win over North Pitt last week, the Lady Falcons (2-0) have now beaten two opponents by 30 and now 40 points, respectively.

Not a bad start to the year.

Senior Ayanna Wilson led three Bertie ladies in double-figure scoring with 15 points.  Zekkeya Morris had 14 and Tenethia Cherry added 13. Marquita Malloy had 11 to lead the Lady Chargers.

A smiling Bertie coach Alice Lyons was asked after the game if such early season success was a combination of great play or great coaching.

“Both”, she said with a wink.  “There were a lot of things we worked on tonight that we needed to and I was proud of the girls.

“Even the second-unit surprised me,” she added.

The second unit, third unit, almost any combination she put on the floor was explosive.  After an early 2-2 tie, Bertie roared out to a 10-0 run and held Weldon without a field goal for the rest of the first quarter.

As impressive as their scoring output was their first-half rebounding: 14-to-6; but they didn’t need to snatch that many caroms on the offensive glass because they only missed three of their first dozen shots.

Defensively, their press forced sloppy ball-handling from the Lady Chargers and Bertie was able to pace the game early with eight points off turnovers.

Seven different players scored for Bertie in the first quarter led by eight points from Wilson.  After getting her first points on a pair of free throws she got a put-back in the lane, a driving baseline layup and then another layup off a steal.

After making it 14-4 on a Weldon free throw, Bertie scored the next 17 in a row, highlighted by an arcing three-pointer from Ebonie Perry and ended the quarter up, 31-4.

“It’s nice to have a bench,” added Lyons, “and it’s so young.  I played a lot of freshmen.”

Bertie started the second quarter on a 13-5 run, capped by their second three-pointer of the night as Wilson buried a rainbow bomb from beyond the arc.

However, if the Lady Falcons displayed an Achilles heel it was their aggressiveness on defense which accounted for them being whistled for 10 first-half fouls.

“We gotta work on not fouling so much,” said Lyons. “We put opponents on the free-throw line and they catch up. We keep them off the line and they won’t be able to score as much.”

With a 53-16 halftime lead it looked like Bertie was headed for a 100-point night; but in the second half the Lady Falcons worked more on their half-court game. Not as much blitzkrieg scoring, but just as effective as they boosted their lead to 62-28 entering the final quarter.

Bertie opened the fourth quarter with a pair of three’s – one each from Cherry and Perry.  From their Weldon went to an inside game and the Lady Falcons’ young front line became foul-prone again.  But the Lady Chargers didn’t capitalize: making just 7-of-21 free throws in taking the 40-point loss to drop to 2-2.

“We were very unselfish tonight,” said Lyons. “Some of the things I tried tonight, I want to be a surprise for our next game.”

That next game will be Monday night at Weldon.