It was a slow start to the season for Stanhope Elmore’s girls basketball team and things did not appear to be turning around before the break. The Mustangs were set for their final game of 2020 as they hosted Chilton County but they had one major piece missing as leading scorer Brooke Burkett could not play.
However, that opened up the door for other players to have success and they delivered to lead Stanhope Elmore to a 69-59 victory over the Tigers, avenging a loss earlier in the season. Jacey Haynes led the way, scoring 22 points in just her second game of the season, including eight in the final quarter to help the Mustangs close out the win.
“We played a big lineup tonight because Jacey who usually is the four or the five played the three tonight,” SEHS coach Kelvin Stokes said. “We played some two-man game with her and Kelbi (Johnson) in a 2-1-2. It opens things up for everybody and gives us a half-court offense. Our half-court game was mostly Brooke coming around screens and trying to shoot but Jacey opens up a lot for us.”
Haynes, who spent last season as a starter for a strong Prattville Christian squad, has made an immediate impact in her limited time with the Mustangs. Her scoring was just the start of her impact in Friday’s victory as her energy boiled over to the defensive end of the court and it quickly spread to her teammates.
“When she is playing the way she played tonight and the girls are over there cheering for her, everybody feeds off that,” Stokes said. “She brings that energy. She’s inspiring and just a breath of fresh air.”
In Haynes’ first game with the Mustangs, things did not go as well in a blowout defeat to Lee. It took some time for her to get comfortable within the rotation and just over a week later, that energy helped put an end to Stanhope Elmore’s four-game losing streak.
“If you want to ask about what the difference between tonight and all the previous nights, it was because of energy,” Stokes said. “After that loss to Lee, I challenged them over this week. I can lose a game but I can’t lose the team. We can’t deal with dropping our heads and giving up. We challenged each other and we finally turned the corner.”
Chilton County (3-6) came out of the gates strong and the Mustangs appeared to be in trouble again. The Tigers led by as many as nine in the first half, following the lead of eighth-grader Iasia Anderson who finished with a game-high 37 points.
“We could’ve looked up there and seen we were down nine or 10 and start thinking here we go again,” Stokes said. “But we came together as a team and that kind of energy and comradery made us keep going. That’s the kind of things I want to see going into the second half of the season.”
Haynes pushed the Mustangs into the lead on a putback with 4:40 to go in the third quarter and they never looked back. She also pushed the lead to double digits for the first time with two baskets in the first 48 seconds of the fourth.
Johnson was another spark on offense, knocking down four 3-pointers and finishing with 19 points. Stokes said he hopes Haynes’ play in the post will continue to open up the outside for Johnson and Burkett once the team is back at full strength.
“I was trying to get Brooke off the ball to start the season but she was terrible off the ball,” Stokes said. “Now we are getting points from other people so we can put her back on the ball where she’s best at. When we get that back and we find that rhythm, that’s when you’ll see more good games from this team.”
