AHOSKIE – Thirty-one points from J’Kyra Brown was just too much to overcome.

Hertford County High School battled perennial 3-A girl’s basketball heavyweight Rocky Mount High School Tuesday, but the work of Brown kept the Bears at bay as the Lady Gryphons claimed an 80-40 win.

The Lady Gryphons opened the game with a three-pointer and never looked back. Brandi Burden answered with a free throw for the Bears, but Brown scored a triple and a hoop back-to-back and was followed by a three-point play from Kelsay Daniels as Rocky Mount surged ahead 11-1.

Kyara Rodgers stopped the run with a pair of shots from the charity stripe, but Brown then scored two hoops around a Burden free throw to give the Gryphons a 15-4 lead after one quarter.

Brown started the second period with three straight points and then her team got a hoop from Carmen Richardson as they went ahead 20-4.

Hertford County’s first score from the floor came at the seven-minute mark of the second quarter when Vanessa Mitchell hit a bucket that sparked a 7-0 spurt for the Lady Bears. Talisha Speight added a hoop and Burden had three free throws during the run that closed the gap to 20-11.

Sakaya Battle, however, hit a pair of free throws for Rocky Mount and was followed by a Brown hoop that helped Rocky Mount take a 24-11 margin.

Following an exchange of scores, the Lady Bears closed the quarter on a 4-0 run thanks to hoops from Burden and Desiree James, to close the quarter trailing 34-20.

Rocky Mount slammed the door to any thoughts of a comeback when they opened the third period on a 9-2 run that pushed the edge to 43-22. From there, they were able to continue to pull away and went on to the victory.

In addition to the 31 from Brown, the Gryphons got 16 from Daniels, 12 from Richardson, 11 from Destiny Parker and 10 from Battle.

Hertford County was paced by Burden’s 16 points and 12 from Rodgers. Mitchell, James and Speight added four each.

The loss dropped the Lady Bears to 1-4.