Mobile Christian coach Kenny Wright gestures to the Leopards’ fans after accepting the runner-up Red Map following Friday’s 81-34 loss to No. 1-ranked Saint James in the Class 3A state championship game at Legacy Arena in Birmingham. (Jimmy Wigfield/Call News)
Saint James’ Jordyn McRae posts up on Mobile Christian’s Hadley Kelly in Friday’s Class 3A state finals. (David Holtsford/AHSAA)
Mobile Christian coach Kenny Wright hugs star center Hadley Kelly as she comes out of the game for the last time Friday. Kelly was held to 4 points and 5 rebounds in the 81-34 loss to Saint James. (Jimmy Wigfield/Call News)
Mobile Christian’s Trenity Jenkins-Gaines directs the Leopards’ offense against Saint James Friday. Jenkins is one of two seniors the Leopards will lose to graduation; Hadley Kelly is the other. (David Holtsford/AHSAA)
Mobile Christian seventh grader Milan Wright looks through the runner-up Red Map after coming off the bench to lead the Leopards with 13 points in Friday’s Class 3A final against Saint James. (Jimmy Wigfield/Call News)
By JIMMY WIGFIELD
BIRMINGHAM — There are fantasies, there are dreams and there is reality.
The fantasy, as it turned out, was the thought of a competitive state championship game between No. 1-ranked Saint James and No. 8 Mobile Christian on Friday, a notion that was quickly dispelled when Natalie Barton threaded a pair of 3-pointers on the Trojans’ first two possessions as easily as flipping on a light switch.
“Once we stepped out on the court, it just kind of hit us, like’s it’s here and it’s our time to shine,” Barton said.
By a factual measure, the coveted Blue Map could have been engraved in the second period when Barton pumped in another 3 to give Saint James a 37-7 lead, which was all the points it needed to win.
On the Leopards’ bench, coach Kenny Wright saw his players’ body language slump, even after he exhorted them: “Don’t care about the score!”
“You don’t understand until you get punched in the face,” he said after suffering through an 81-34 defeat at Legacy Arena, the third-largest losing margin in a girls state championship game regardless of class. “We got punched and it was hard to gather ourselves and get back. We couldn’t make a shot. It was just one of those nights and it so happened to be on the biggest stage in Alabama.”
The reality is the best teams in south Alabama — judging from a series of humbling defeats at the state tournament — aren’t anywhere near as good as teams from the central and northern part of the state.
So why did Wright pump his fist to the crowd after accepting the runner-up Red Map? Why did seventh grader Milan Wright, who came off the bench to lead Mobile Christian with 13 points, want another chance to beat the Trojans?
“If we play them again, it will be different,” Milan Wright said as she peered from behind the Red Map, looking through it to a blue one.
The answer is in their dreams and these facts: Eight of the Leopards’ 12 players will be back for at least the next two to three years. They could very well see Saint James again, as 12 of its 14 players are back, including the junior Barton, who led the team with 18 points Friday, three sophomores and five freshmen.
“The future’s bright,” coach Wright said. “We’ve got to work hard and hopefully we do all the right things and we’ll be back here. I am ready to go practice right now.”
It’s still going to take a lot of practice to reach the level of the Trojans, who won their last 13 games to finish 33-4 and conquered four ranked teams in their last four games — Lee-Scott (No. 10), Midfield (No. 3), Mars Hill (No. 2) and Mobile Christian (No. 8). Saint James won 32 of 33 games by double digits.
“They did exactly what I thought they were going to do,” coach Wright said. “We’ve just got to get better. Saint James is a heck of a team, a great team, well coached, a lot of skill. They got after it. … but 99.999 percent of teams in the state want to be here and we were one of the two.”
However, the chasm between the last two teams standing was stark. Since January, the Leopards’ defense had allowed just 32 points per game but the Trojans had that many in the second period and led 41-7 at halftime.
“We were all pretty anxious to go ahead and play,” Saint James freshman Jordyn McRae said. “Even last night, we were all like jumping on the bed.”
The Trojans used but a fraction of their complex defenses — variations of their 1-3-1 zone, man-to-man and a 2-3 zone — to turn Mobile Christian blue, forcing 29 turnovers and outscoring the Leopards 33-4 off those. Saint James also converted the loose balls into layups, outscoring Mobile Christian 26-4 off the fast break and 40-2 in the paint.
All of that happened although Trojans coach Katie Barton confessed she didn’t even compile a scouting report on the Leopards or Mars Hill, Saint James’ semifinal victim.
“I didn’t do a scouting report on either team in this tournament because I focused on us,” she said. “We did talk about who (Mobile Christian’s) best players were. We knew they got a shot blocker and they got speedy, quick guards.”
None of that made any difference. Hadley Kelly, at 6-foot-1 the tallest player on the floor who issued 23 rejections in the South Regional final and six more in the state semifinals against Glencoe, had only one block and didn’t score until she made a free throw with 3:45 left. She made only 1 of 6 shots (a three-pointer) and finished her high school career with 4 points and 5 rebounds.
“I said it in the locker room and I’ll say it again — I still choose my team over anybody,” Kelly said. “I never would have believed that we would be here today. I still am trying to process that I am about to take my basketball shoes off for the last time. I still have them on because I don’t want to take them off.”
The Leopards (22-11), who had a seven-game winning streak broken, never led and struggled mightily to reach what had been their season low in points, 23 against Gulf Shores. That came on Milan Wright’s stepback 3 in the fourth period to make it 70-24.
“In our game against Glencoe, she didn’t think she played well and regardless of the outcome in this game, she told me she was going to play better in the championship game and she did,” coach Wright said of his cousin.
Milan Wright’s emergence at the state tournament is a result of something many Mobile-area teams lack: Players who play basketball and train year-round.
“Speaking on the girls’ side, I know a lot of girls don’t play year-round,” coach Wright said. “Saint James has four or five who only play basketball and they play year-round and they play high-level AAU and they train just about every day.”
He observed that girls basketball in south Alabama remains more seasonal.
“I don’t want to say it negatively but they don’t put in the work,” coach Wright said. “We’re getting there; that’s why we’re here. The work is gonna show.”
What showed during the week was the discomfiture of Mobile-area teams, which knew no bounds or classes, whether it was 2A, 3A, 4A, 5A, 6A or 7A. The closest games were 15-point losses by the Saraland boys and the two-time defending Class 4A champion Jackson boys. LeFlore’s boys lost by 19, Clarke County’s girls by 22, Jackson’s girls by 32, Bryant’s girls by 45 and Mobile Christian’s girls by 47.
Kelly thinks Mobile Christian will fix what is necessary to win a Blue Map.
“They’ve got to be back here again and I can’t wait to watch from the crowd,” she said.
