Murphy’s Jasmine Hobbs finds the going tough inside against Park Crossing Thursday in the Class 6A South Regional semifinals at Garrett Coliseum in Montgomery. Hobbs scored 13 points in the Panthers’ 56-32 loss to the No. 1-ranked Thunderbirds. (Helen Joyce/ Call News)
By JIMMY WIGFIELD
MONTGOMERY — Murphy’s girls gave one of the more respectable efforts this season against No. 1-ranked Park Crossing in a 56-32 loss to the No. 1-ranked Thunderbirds in the Class 6A South Regional semifinals Thursday at Garrett Coliseum.
Park Crossing (31-1), which hasn’t lost to an in-state school, has won half of its games by at least 40 points and the Panthers (15-13) are only the fourth team to hold the Thunderbirds under 60.
Jasmine Hobbs scored 13 points and Nneoma Aliozor had 13 rebounds for Murphy, which had matched its longest winning streak of the season with three postseason victories.
Park Crossing never trailed and steadily pulled away from the Panthers, who didn’t execute coach Mykel Cleveland’s well-laid plans to take advantage of the Thunderbirds in the paint.
“I don’t think it was difficult to get them prepared,” Cleveland said. “The most difficult part about it was keeping them focused and keeping them on track with the game plan and that’s where they got away from. We had it mapped all the way out. Everything they were going to do, I had them prepared for and they did exactly what I said they were going to do. We just didn’t execute on our end.”
Unable to get any points in the paint, Murphy finished 0 of 11 from three-point range.
“They have no weaknesses,” Cleveland said of Park Crossing. “They are a complete team.”
Point guard Saniya Jackson — “who is an extension of their coach,” Cleveland said — led the Thunderbirds with 16 points.
Cleveland said his team had a chance to make the game closer after getting Park Crossing center Maliyah Meeks in early foul trouble, which limited her to 19 minutes and 10 points.
“It could have been closer because the one thing I have most over every team in the state is size and I’m trying to tell them if we just get the ball inside, we will dominate them,” Cleveland said. “And we got to their biggest person.”
Cleveland said next season looks even better for the Panthers, although he is losing three seniors in Aliozor, Hobbs and Kiera Green, because he has some talented transfers.
