Kimberly Rhodes came up two steals shy of a triplendouble Tuesday night as she led Georgiana's varsity girls to a 61n43 win over Highland Home.

Rhodes paced the Lady Panthers (2n2) with 21 points, 14 rebounds and eight steals. She had to step up and lead the team after Senior Latrece Whatley fouled out of the game in the third quarter.

"They pressed us most of the night and most of the girls couldn't handle the ball," secondnyear Head Coach John Cheatham said. "After Latrece fouled out, we put Kimberly at the point and she handled it well."

Whatley and Keyosha Payne were Georgiana's secondnleading scorers with 14 points each. Whatley also had 10 steals and six boards.

"I think we played pretty good, but we're still not where we need to be at this time," Cheatham said. "We're still going to try to steadily improve and hopefully reach our goals by the end of the regular season."

Cheatham said the Lady Panthers' goals this season are to improve fundamentally as a team and to make a repeat trip to the Class 2A state playoffs.

Georgiana's varsity boys weren't as fortunate as the girls and suffered a 70n42 road loss to Highland Home.

"We couldn't buy a basket," GHS firstnyear Head Coach Bryan Burdette said. "We did not shoot well. It was one of those games where everything they put up went in and everything we put

up bounced out. It by far was our worst outing of the season."

David Rudolph led the Panthers with 12 points followed closely by Letonio Jackson, who added 10 points. Andrew Rudolph led the defense with nine rebounds.

Burdette said Highland Home's size posed a problem for his team.

"Their center was everywhere," Burdette said. "He blocked shots, everything that came off the rim for them he put it back and he dunked on us once. We didn't have an answer for him."

In order for the Panthers to start winning, Burdette said his players will have to start taking advantage of shot opportunities and play more aggressively on defense.

"They were giving us the threenpointer, but we couldn't get the baskets to fall," he said. "We didn't do anything with it."

Georgiana's Bnteam also fell victim to Highland Home, 43n42.

The Panthers, after trailing at halftime, battled back in the second half and was looking to capture a win. Up 39n38 with 9.7 seconds remaining, a technical foul gave the Flying Squadron three shots from the charity stripe that proved to be costly. All three shots were made putting the home team up 41n39 helping them to the win.

Despite the costly penalty, Burdette feels his team played well.

"That was their best game of the year I felt like," Burdette said. "If we would have made our free throws we would have beaten them."

Samson Nelson led GHS with 13 points and Zane McMeans paced the defense with seven rebounds. Ken Peterson added eight points and four boards.