McGill-Toolen’s Makayla Johnson is forced to pass off by Pike Road’s defense during Thursday night’s Class 6A South Regional at Garrett Coliseum in Montgomery. (Helen Joyce/Call News)
By JIMMY WIGFIELD
MONTGOMERY — McGill-Toolen’s girls saw Pike Road take a blowtorch to a 12-point lead but held the Patriots scoreless in overtime and extracted a 39-33 victory Thursday night in the Class 6A South Regional at Garrett Coliseum.
The Yellow Jackets (23-6) won their 14th straight game and never trailed but Pike Road (15-13) gradually melted the lead and forced overtime on Audrey Blaine’s short jumper banked off the glass to tie it 33-33 with 14 seconds left.
After seeing its large lead vanish, McGill-Toolen dominated in overtime, as the Patriots went 0 of 3 from the field and 0 of 2 at the free-throw line while Makayla Johnson’s jumper in the paint and four free throws from Kam Wright and Jayde Dempsey secured the victory.
The Jackets face a formidable challenge against No. 1-ranked Park Crossing (31-1) in the regional finals Wednesday at 12:30 p.m.
“It’s about preparation,” said McGill-Toolen coach Carla Berry, who made it clear she believes the Thunderbirds can be grounded. “It doesn’t matter who you’re playing. You’ve got to be very clear on your identity and where you can play to your strengths. Anybody that’s playing at this time of the year believes in their team.”
Reagan Burroughs was the only Jackets player in double figures with 10 points but eight of their nine players scored as McGill-Toolen’s bench outscored Pike Road’s 9-2.
Berry was disappointed the game was forced into overtime on Blaine’s short jumper off an inbounds pass.
“We should have defended that better,” she said. “We even talked about it at the timeout that we had fouls to give. The scouting report said that she is their best player. She can score from anywhere on the floor, so my preference would have been to foul on the floor immediately, make them take it out of bounds again and not give them anything in the paint but you live and you learn.”
Blaine finished with 11 points but she made just 3 of 10 field goals.
The Jackets led 18-6 in the second period, then lost their intensity, Berry said.
“I thought our defense was really good and the momentum shifted a little bit because we weren’t finishing the possession with a box out,” she said. “Or a lot of times, it was a loose ball and they were getting on the floor. They were playing with a greater sense of urgency at the end of the possession. We talked about you’ve got to get back to dominating the 50-50 balls. You’ve got to finish a good possession with the box out. We cannot foul and we cannot give anything in the paint. Sometimes you just have to reset a little bit. We started the game doing all of those things and that’s how we got the lead and then sometimes you can get a little complacent and the other team gets a little bit more intense with a greater sense of urgency because they’re down.”
But McGill-Toolen was stirred, not shaken, and fully in command in overtime.
“I thought we did a good job in overtime,” Berry said. “We did a good job of not playing too fast but also finding scoring opportunities and then knocking down our free throws when we needed to. Defensively, we did a good job of containing penetration, backing it up a little bit and kind of shrinking the court and then picking up loose balls, getting the box out and making them take tough shots.”
