Norcross Girls Notch Another State Championship

The Norcross High School girls basketball team won its third Georgia High School Association championship in four seasons by beating Gwinnett County rival North Gwinnett Saturday night at the Macon Centreplex.

The Lady Blue Devils, who won titles in 2010 and '11, used 44 points from stars Diamond DeShields (24 points) and Shayla Cooper (20 points) to beat North Gwinnett 63-42 in the Class AAAAAA final.

See Also:

• Norcross-North Gwinnett box score, powered by Sidearm Sports
• Class AAAAAA Girls Brackets
• GHSA Basketball Home Page
• Previous GHSA State Champions

Field-goal shooting was the difference, with Norcross making more than 60 percent of its shots, and North hitting only 27 percent, according to statistics linked by the GHSA and sponsored by West Georgia Technical College.

The Norcross win avenged a loss to the Lady Bulldogs in the Region 7-AAAAAA final last month.

Norcross, which led by 23 points at one point in the third quarter, had to hold off a fourth-quarter rally by North Gwinnett, which got as close as 12 points before it was over.

It also was the sixth state championship for Norcross coach Angie Hembree, who has won three titles each at Norcross and Collins Hill.

North Gwinnett was led by Lexie Brown's 20 points.