Gray leads to Silver

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Glenn Nelson/ESPN.comThe Georgia Metros' Allisha Gray scored 45 points during two Sunday games that resulted in a silver-bracket Nike Nationals championship for her team.

NORTH AUGUSTA, S.C. -- A late first half run by West Coast Premier was squashed in the second by Allisha Gray, who exploded for 18 points during the final 16 minutes to power the Georgia Metros to a silver-bracket championship at Nike Nationals. The No. 14 player in the ESPNU HoopGurlz Terrific 25 coming into the summer finished with 25 points after hitting 20 points in the Metros' semifinal win over Boo Williams.

West Coast Premier closed the first half on a 10-2 run to take a 22-12 lead and Lauren Holiday, a rising senior from Chatsworth, Calif., who has verbally committed to UCLA, looked to continue the run in the second half with a steal and score. But that was West Coast's last hurrah. Fairfax had been through this before, having lost to West Coast in the opening gave of pool play 71-54.

"I think any time you play this level of team you have to expect they'll come back," Metros coach Matt Huddleston said. "The difference was they kept coming back in this one."

West Coast was led by the 15 points of Lauren Holiday. Gray, however, brought her A-game, and leading the charge to squash every West Coast surge.

"I needed to step up to play my role," Gray said. "It's not fair if everybody else plays their role and I didn't."

West Coast wasn't the only thing the Metros battled. Marques Webb, the 6-foot-2 rising junior from Montgomery, Ala., had been running a fever the last few days. Huddleston decided to sit her out of the morning's semifinal game, a 60-42 win over Boo Williams, to give her a chance to get well and help her team close out its summer with a W.

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Chris Hansen is the national director of prospects for ESPN HoopGurlz and covers girls' basketball and women's college basketball prospects nationally for ESPN.com. A graduate of the University of Washington with a communications degree, he has been involved in the women's basketball community since 1998 as a high school and club coach, trainer, evaluator and reporter. He is a member of the McDonald's All-American team selection committee. Hansen can be reached at chris.hansen@espn.com.

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ESPNHS HoopGurlz

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• National director of prospects for HoopGurlz
• Coached girls' high school and club basketball
• Girls and women's basketball trainer, evaluator and reporter since 1998