Buford improves to 4-1 after "turning up the heat" in Central Macon win

Buford's Ava Grace Watson #2 pushes the ball out of traffic vs Central Macon

After dropping their season opener, the Buford Wolves girls basketball team has put together four straight wins with the most recent coming on Saturday as the Wolves defeated the Central Macon Chargers by a final of 77-55. And while the final score would give the perception that Buford was in full control from the opening tip, that would not be the case as the Chargers had the Wolves on the ropes early in the contest.

After taking an early 5-4 lead, Buford would fall behind as the Chargers would outscore Buford from there 14-10 to close out the opening quarter with an 18-15 lead. In the second quarter, the Wolves would fall behind by as many as eight points before turning up the defensive intensity to tie the game at 28 a piece and then eventually taking a three point lead into the locker room at the break after a Ava Watson Grace, who finished with a game high 23 points, 3-point basket from nearly halfcourt to beat the buzzer and give Buford a 35-32 lead.

In the third quarter, the Wolves would gain more control as they would extend their lead to ten as they would open up the quarter on a 17-10 run to take a 52-42 lead and would then close out the period with a 62-44 run, eventually finishing the game with the 77-55 win and improving to 4-1 on the season. "We're trying to continue to get better," Buford head coach, Gene Durden said of the Wolves win, which was their fourth straight win after dropping their seaon opener.

Durden praised his players efforts, in particularly in which their defense began to cause problems for the Chargers, leading to several Central Macon turnovers and as Durden explained, the Wolves began "turning up the heat and doing what we needed to do,". Giving praise to the Chargers for being a team that can be "really dangerous" and cause opponents problems and having recognized how much of threat the Chargers could have been, Durden applauded his team's ability to overcome the early adversity in the game. "I'm just really proud that our team competed with that situation," Darden added.