The high school basketball season is less than a month old the most important games of the season will not be played until the calendar turns to 2020.

However, there have been some highlights and trends over the past four weeks. Here are five of them:

  1. The Brighton Lady Cardinals, led by some very impressive individual performances, are off to a hot start. After a 75-15 win last Saturday against Wingfield, Brighton is 8-1. In that game, which was played in Jackson, Miss., three Lady Cardinals scored 19 or more points, which is very rare for a high school game. DeMiyah Gatlin scored a career-high 26 points and and Albanie Dunn also put 26 in the scorebook. Sylvia Jones added 19 points and seven steals.

    Brighton’s Sylvia Jones drives to the basket in recent action. Photo by Laura Drew Holmes
  2. The only team to beat Brighton this year is Covington and the Lady Chargers (10-2) have also started the season in impressive fashion.Covington’s two losses came against very strong out-of-town teams. Last Monday, Covington won on the road against Gibson County, a team which won the Class A state title last season. Kalynn Howard (15.5 points per game) and Felia Fayne (14.2), both juniors, have led the way. Fayne is averaging 8.8 rebounds per game and Howard is shooting 40 percent from 3-point range.
  3. The Covington boys are 7-2 while playing a very difficult schedule. Covington’s two losses have come against Charleston (Mo.) and Olive Branch, which is nationally-ranked and was the Class 5A state runnerup last season in Mississippi. Travontae Powell has scored more than 20 points three times while Brandon Alston and Tyjuan Smth have each had some excellent games in the early going.

    Brandon Alston and the Chargers are off to a hot start. Photo by David Perry
  4. The Tipton-Rosemark girls picked up a very impressive win on Monday at Bartlett. Playing one of the better public schools in the Memphis area, the Lady Rebels got a 3-pointer at the buzzer from Megan Sanfratello for a 60-59 overtime win. Brianna Hall scored 27 points in a Nov. 26 win over Olive Branch, one of the top 6A teams in Mississippi. Rosemark is 5-2.
  5. There’s been a lot of hype surrounding Rosemark junior Alex Anderson, who has committed to South Alabama, and he has lived up to it early in the season. He scored 21 in a key district win against Trinity Christian Academy on Dec. 10 and had 36 points and 16 rebounds in a close loss at Hamilton on Nov. 25.
Jeff Ireland
Author: Jeff Ireland

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