PA adds 15th straight title to reign
Stephenson jump-starts Cavaliers after slow start against Salem
NORFOLK — Princess Anne clinched its 15th straight region girls basketball title in dominant fashion Monday.
With the 54-36 win at Scope over Salem, Princess Anne is now set up to play the loser of the Class 5 Region B final between Menchville and Norview in the state tournament. Despite losing, Salem will also advance to the state tournament and will play the winner of the Menchville-Norview matchup.
Princess Anne’s leading scorer, senior Zakiya Stephenson, put together another solid performance. The Ole Miss commit finished with 14 points in the game, tied for the most on the team.
“It means a lot,” Stephenson said. “I just thank God I got in this position to be part of this team and being here.”
For a brief moment, it appeared that Salem was going to give Princess Anne a run for its money.
Salem used stifling defense to keep the Princess Anne offense under wraps in the first quarter. Elyseia Brown led the SunDevils with eight points in the first quarter, six from the free-throw line.
Princess Anne looked caught off guard by the defense and just disorganized in general. The Cavaliers even had a technical foul called on them early for having too many players on the floor.
When the first quarter concluded, Salem was up 14-13 and appeared to have all the momentum.
Stephenson’s first-quarter performance was representative of the Princess Anne team as a whole: she had only two points.
Whatever adjustments Princess Anne made in between quarters worked. Princess Anne outscored Salem 23-3 in the second period.
“The difference is we knew that we made a couple of bad shot selections,” Stephenson said. “Then we
came out and said that we need to pick up on defense and do better rotating and talking.”
Tinasia Spencer led Princess Anne with 11 points in the first half, including a buzzer-beater to close the second quarter. She finished the game with 12 points.
Princess Anne’s stellar second-quarter defense helped it go into halftime up 36-17.
“The message was that [Coach Darnell Dozier] wanted us to just play defense, because he really doesn’t care about offense,” Stephenson said. “He cares about defense and what we do on that court on defense.”
After turning up the heat in the second quarter, Princess Anne didn’t skip a beat in the second half.
Hailey Harris was on fire from 3-point range for the Cavs. She made four 3-pointers in the game and tied Stephenson for a teamhigh 14 points.
Salem only had five players score, led by Brown with 18 points.
Now that the state tournament is on the horizon, Stephenson and Princess Anne have a shot to win their ninth state title in the last 10 years. Princess Anne had won eight straight state titles before being bounced by Norview in last year’s tournament.
Stephenson said this year’s Princess Anne team is hungry to get back to its winning ways.
“We carry that chip on our shoulder very much,” Stephenson said. “It was a very [big] disappointment, but we’ve come back this year with fire and we’ve just come in here and said we’re going to win the state.”