AHOSKIE – Not the way you want it remembered if you’re the home team.

Bertie High spoiled Senior Night at Hertford County High Friday night with a ten-point run to open the second quarter and then coasted to a 60-44 win.

The two rivals played for just the second time this season. Usually there is a showdown meeting in the Holiday Basketball Classic every December; but due to scheduling and seeding they did not face each other this year.

Brandi Burden, playing her last game in home-white closed out her career scoring 19 points. Freshman Kyara Rodgers also hit for double-figures with 13.

Four Bertie players hit for doubles led by Zhiasia Bazemore with 13. Tyessense Martin had a dozen and Da’najah Brown and Chaquasja Veale had 11 apiece.

Bertie finished the Northeastern Coastal Conference season at 9-3, tied with Northeastern for second place. However, the Eagles won a coin-flip and will be seeded second in the upcoming tournament.

Hertford County finished the year at 7-13 and 5-7 in conference play.

Bertie scored the first basket of the game and never trailed. Dalisha Speight got the first points for HCHS; but the Bears trailed 9-2. Burden and Rodgers helped bring the home team back and it was just a two-point game after the first eight minutes, 9-7, Bertie.

Thanks to the Lady Falcons’ swarming pressure defense that produced turnovers that became easy lay-ups Bertie held the Lady Bears scoreless for the first five minutes of quarter number-two while the visitors reeled off ten in a row. Burden broke the drought with a jump shot and collected another before the horn, but it was still 21-11, Bertie, at the break.

Bertie put up 19 points in the third quarter, but Hertford County put up 16 making the quarter punctuated by runs from both teams. A six-point run was countered by the opposition, and then a four-point and so on until the buzzer sounded for the final eight minutes to be played.

HertfordCounty tried to get back into it in the final stanza with a 14-to-four run that trimmed the margin to eleven points, 49-38, Bertie. Falcons coach Alice Lyons began substituting and the Bears mounted one last run to get it to six, 50-44, with two-forty-five left to play. But from there the Bears couldn’t hit and Bertie scored ten in a row for the 16-point final score.

In Monday’s first-round NCC tournament games Hertford County faced Edenton J.A. Holmes while Bertie played First Flight. Neither game had been completed by press time.