One of the county’s top high school basketball teams hit the road over the holidays and came home with a first-place trophy as well as some excellent preparation for the remainder of the regular season and especially region play.

  The Luella Lady Lions won the Clearwater Beach bracket of the Tampa Bay Christmas Invitational, finishing with a 57-48 victory on December 30 over the host school, Seffner Christian Academy, just east of Tampa. Luella previously defeated two other Florida schools, winning 49-39 over Armwood and 49-44 over Gulf Coast.

  The tournament consisted of four brackets with 32 total teams from Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, New Jersey, Ohio, Puerto Rico, Tennessee, Texas and Wisconsin.

  Luella head coach LaToya Brown, looking to lead her squad to a second straight Final Four appearance in the Georgia High School Association state playoffs in March, was pleased with the challenge the event presented and the way her girls responded to it.

  “This was a great tournament,” she said. “The talent here was amazing. We had three very tough opponents.”

  As reflected by the low scores, the Lady Lions faced a different style of play than that to which they are usually accustomed.

  “When they’re playing great defense, you have to make a lot more adjustments on the fly,” said Brown. “I was calling more timeouts than I usually do. But this will definitely help us going into the region schedule.”

  Luella was led by Paris Miller and Keely Brown, both of whom scored in double figures in all three games. Other contributors in the scorebook were Cam Berry, Breyell Mobley, Taj Williams, Jada Session and Ari Dyson. Rounding out the roster were Myah Beasley, Kamilah Jenkins, Tamaya Stevenson, Tmyr Spencer, Shelby Lacy, Molly Williams, Telisa Hollingshed and Audrey Levasseur.

  The tournament opened December 27 with a Friday afternoon game, followed by a Saturday game and then a day off on Sunday. The team took advantage of that by spending some time at the beach in nearby Clearwater.

  “We had a few who had never been to Florida,” said Brown. “They all enjoyed it.”