That time of year
McMinn Central girls win fourth straight region title
While the names on the backs of the jerseys change, the results simply do not.
Despite having to replace four senior starters, including a Miss Basketball award winner from last season, McMinn Central’s girls refuse to loosen their grip on the Region 3-AA hardware. Wednesday night, they won their fourth consecutive tournament championship with a convincing 52-37 victory over Meigs County at Red Bank.
McMinn Central (26-10) will host Macon County in the sub-state round Saturday, when Meigs County (26-6) will travel to unbeaten, top-ranked Upperman.
What is considered a rebuilding year for the Chargerettes would be a dream season for most programs.
“I’m not sure what was expected out of this group before the season started, but most people probably didn’t expect us to be where we are now,” veteran Chargerettes coach Johnny Morgan said. “Even though we lost those four starters, we had a group behind them that had played a lot of minutes in big games, and they were ready to prove what they could do.
“They probably didn’t have the confidence in themselves that their coaches had in them to start the year, but now they’re getting there. They’re believing how good they can be as a team.”
McMinn Central proved just how good it could be with a dominating first half that including scoring runs of 13-2 and 7-0 while taking a 15-point halftime lead. Chargerettes junior Melia Baker scored half of her 24 points in the first half, and senior point guard Jordan Wright had 10 of her 14 by halftime.
“We knew it would be really big to come out and jump on them early,” said Baker, who was named the region tournament MVP. “It was all about our defense. We work really hard on that in practice every day, and our offense feeds off the turnovers we get from our pressure.
“This is a win that should give us a lot of confidence for Saturday, and getting to host the sub-state game is huge because now our fans can pack the gym and give us a lot of energy.”
The Chargerettes have won six straight games, and seven of their losses this season were to teams in larger classifications.
They led Meigs County by 18 midway through the third quarter, but the Lady Tigers closed the period on an 8-0 run and eventually cut their deficit to seven. Meigs County had chances to pull even closer twice but missed shots that would have cut the lead to five, and the Lady Tigers missed seven of their last 10 free throws down the stretch.
“That first half was a McMinn Central clinic,” Meigs County coach Jason Powell said. “They did whatever they wanted for the first two quarters, and you just can’t dig yourself into holes like that against a team that good.
“When you get to this point of the season you have to be ready to play for four quarters, and our problem this season has been inconsistency. We were desperate and came out in the second half just playing hard to try and avoid getting embarrassed.”
Contact Stephen Hargis at shargis@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6293. Follow him on Twitter @StephenHargis.