Rogers has big senior night as Starkville beats Okolona
There's a direct correlation between Starkville's offensive production and what Blake Rogers does to help in the cause. That was never more apparent than on Tuesday night. In a rematch of Starkville's last loss back in November, Rogers was ice cold in the first half with five points and the Yellowjackets were behind on the scoreboard. The senior on senior night came out of the locker room with 14-straight points to help spring his offense and SHS held on late for the 52-49 win.
“It energizes everyone when we make shots and it doesn't matter who's making them, but he made some big ones,” Jacket head coach Greg Carter said. “We play better defense when we're making shots.”
It capped a stellar week on the court for Rogers, who once again earned OCH Athlete of the Week honors. Along with his 23-point showing on Tuesday, Rogers had 17 points against Murrah and 24 against Madison Central in two big Class 6A, Region 3 wins that claimed another regular season district title.
Tuesday's matchup was virtually meaningless in the grand scheme of things, but it was personal to Rogers and the Jackets.
“The seniors wanted to win on senior night,” Rogers said. “That was the last team that beat us and we wanted to go off in our house. It felt great.”
To get that redemption, it took all five of the seniors. Rogers along with Donte Powers, Natrone Brooks and Jordan Temple all played a part in the victory, but it wasn't easy.
Despite the Class A status, Okolona is considered one of the state's best teams. The Chieftains appeared to live up to that hype for four quarters as they never backed away from the push from SHS.
The Jackets jumped out to a 16-7 lead after one quarter, but Okolona came out on an 8-0 run to take a 16-15 lead. The Chieftains allowed just five points in the second quarter and Starkville trailed 23-21.
During that first half, Rogers was 2-for-7 from the field and had just five points. He set out to change that quickly out of the locker room.
The talented senior guard hit 14-straight points nailing four 3-pointers to get back control of the game with a 35-27 advantage. It was 40-33 after the third and Rogers had 16
points in the quarter.
“It was real big and gave us a little cushion,” Rogers said. “I was slacking off the first half and my team picked me up. The second half I tried to assert myself a little more and it took some pressure off of me. I started knocking down shots.”
Okolona made a game of it in the final frame when it cut the margin to two points with 4:30 left. It was nip and tuck all the way down to the 12-second mark when Atavius Jones knocked a basketball loose and created a turnover. Tyler Talley hit a free throw and the Jackets won by three.
Starkville (20-3) is a different team since the last time it met the Chieftains. After that 70-65 loss on the road, the Jackets haven't lost a game in over two months. They've won 15-straight with one final game against Noxubee County on the road coming up on Friday.
Carter said his team still isn't where he wants it to be, but there's not much to complain about at this point.
“We've grown up a lot,” Carter said. “We let (Okolona) out-tough us last time we played them, but we didn't do that this time. We made some plays and got big rebounds. We have grown a lot. We're closer now than we were then.” The thought was that it couldn't get much worse for the Lady Chieftains than the 64-4 game in the first meeting, but somehow that theory was disproven.
SHS didn't give up a single field goal in Tuesday's game as it cruised from start to finish and improved to 21-2 for the season.
Four seniors were honored in the game as Tabreea Gandy, Jariyah Covington, Kirsten Thompson and Carley Evans played their final regular season games at the Beehive.
“It's a very special moment,” Starkville girls coach Kristie Williams said. “You always want to see them develop into great young women and that's what they've done. (The year) 2018 is a nice group of young ladies.”
The Lady Jackets jumped out to a 13-0 lead before the first points were finally scored by Okolona and it was 22-1 after one quarter. Following a 44-2 halftime advantage, the clock rolled the rest of the game.
It was a good senior night for the two star guards Gandy and Covington who finished with 11 and 15 points respectively.
Williams mentioned the joy she's had coaching those two players for the last several years as their careers in high school wind down.
“There's no way to explain what they've meant to our program,” Williams said. “They've been here since ninth grade so it's a bittersweet moment for me.”