How to resolve AdBlock issue? The Freeze Queen
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- Elizabeth Jane Franklin | In Memory of my Great-Aunt
Everyone called her little, but number four was anything but. Jane Franklin Beaver was the biggest player on the basketball court.
The “Freeze Queen” could out-play even the tallest girls with her expert dribbling moves and perfect shots. Beaver led her Dacula High Girls Basketball team to the State Semifinals in 1953, but they were defeated. However, in 1954, she was determined to claim the title of Class “C” state champions, so that’s what she did.
Beaver’s time-wasting dribbling act in the final quarter of the 1954 semifinal game against Willacoochee led to a 48-40 win, sending Dacula High to the championship game against Bogart. Once again, Beaver worked her magic on the court, winning the state final 51-41 and making her team the first and only Dacula Girls Basketball team to ever win the state tournament. She made the all-tournament team, alongside two of her teammates, and was ranked sixth among the point makers, having scored 48 points throughout the tournament.
The Freeze Queen, Jane Beaver Circa 1954Only being a junior when her team won the state championship in 1954, Beaver got another chance to lead her team to the state finals. Dacula beat Roopville in the semi-finals after a six-minute freeze by Beaver in the fourth quarter, sending them, once again, to the state championship, this time against the Pitts. They played their hardest, but Dacula gave up a shot with twenty seconds left to play, giving Pitts the win, 55-53.
There is no doubt that "little" Jane Beaver dominated the court in her time, but her accomplishments were still being recognized when she was inducted into the Dacula High School Basketball Hall of Fame with the entire 1954 State team and then later as an individual in 2015. However, even her reign as the “Freeze Queen,” Beaver was still a star in the hearts of her friends and family, leaving a long-lasting impression on so many people, even up until her passing on December 24, 2018. Jane Beaver will always hold her title as the “little Dacula playmaker” but she will be remembered as so much more.