Historic Season Comes to End

The 2024/2025 Jay Lady Royals’ (20-4) season came to an end at Holmes County (26-2), 56-50. This was the second time this season Jay lost to Holmes (first game Holmes defeated Jay 69-50 at Jay on December 16). While Jay did start off a little slow this time around, the Lady Royals continued to chip away at the Blue Devil lead and found themselves down only by four with the ball under a minute left to go. That was as close as Jay would get, however, as the Lady Royals could not overcome some untimely fouls and injuries.

“So proud of these girls. They could have quit, but they didn’t,” head coach Jorey Diamond said after the game. “Really going to miss my seniors. They really gave it their all and were great examples for the underclassmen.”

Jay scored the first basket of the game, but never led after that, even though Jay outscored Holmes in both the second and fourth quarters.

While the season didn’t end in Lakeland, as was planned, it will still be marked by some monumental accomplishments including winning the district championship, 59-45 over Paxton (the win was Jay’s fourth over Paxton (19-5) on the season). The district championship was Jay’s third in a row. Additionally, the season marked head coach Jorey Diamond’s and the Lady Royals’ second 20 win season in a row.

While Jay is losing Carleigh Baker, Darcy Locklin and Adyson Adams, the Lady Royals still return three (or at times this season four) of their starters.

The future seems bright for the Lady Royals and perhaps, 2025/2026 a trip to Lakeland is waiting…

JHS 9 14 10 17-50

HCHS 23 8 12 13-56

(A Nelson 17, P Hawthorne 5, A Adams 13, C Baker 7, G Lewis 2, K Gilbreath 6)