GAC ends run for Lady Warriors
When 2021-22 season started, LFO expected to be much improved over the injury-riddled team that went winless season before.
As it turned out, the Lady Warriors weren’t just improved, they were Elite.
Ranked in the top 10 nearly the entire season and with just one nonregion loss on their resume going into the state tournament, the Redand-white went into last Tuesday’s night Class AAA Elite Eight matchup against traditional powerhouse Greater Atlanta Christian fully believing they had what it took go to the Final Four and maybe even a little further.
And they nearly did.
Unfortunately, one of the most remarkable single-season turnarounds in the entire history of Georgia high school basketball finally came to an end with a 67-60 loss to the Lady Spartans in a battle of top five teams in Fort Oglethorpe.
“We were building this last year,” LFO head coach Dewayne Watkins said of last year’s 0-19 campaign. “This group just kept battling the whole time and never got their heads down. We took our knocks last year, but we knew we’d be better this year. Now did I think we’d be 28-2 and be in the Elite Eight? Probably nobody could have predicted that, but we did think we’d be a lot better.”
Both teams were ice-cold from the floor in the opening quarter.
Second-ranked LFO connected on just two field goals and fourth-ranked GAC had just one, but the two teams combined to shoot 20 free throws — 13 by the visitors — in a first quarter that ended in a 9-9 tie.
The Lady Warriors were whistled for eight fouls in the opening eight minutes, but it was a play with 23 seconds left in the quarter that would end up having a major impact on the rest of the game.
LFO freshman guard Christen Collins, one of the team’s leading scorers all season long at nearly 18 points per contest, was shaken up after being fouled and hitting the floor following a drive to the basket. After being
examined by the LFO athletic trainers, she was held out of the rest of the game as a safety precaution.
In response, the rest of the team picked up the slack.
A 9-0 run in the second quarter gave LFO its biggest lead at 21-14 with 4:30 left before halftime. However, the Lady Spartans drained three 3-pointers over the next two minutes and briefly regained a one-point lead before Christina Collins knocked down a 12-foot jumper at the buzzer to put the Lady Warriors back in front, 2827, at intermission.
The back-and-forth battle continued in the third quarter, which saw five ties. With fouls beginning to mount, the Lady Warriors got nine points from the bench in the period. Zaira Thompson converted a pair of three-point plays and Skye Alexander connected on a 3-pointer as LFO trailed 42-41 going into the fourth.
As more fouls were called on both teams, both defenses found it tougher to defend on drives to the basket. Christina Collins and Angel Simmons converted 3-point plays on back-to-back possessions to cut what had been a six-point GAC lead down to 56-54 with 1:16 remaining.
But the Lady Spartans won the game at the free throw line. They hit all 11 of their attempts in the fourth quarter, including nine in the final 1:10 to keep the Lady Warriors at bay. They
finished the game 27 of 38 at the charity stripe, but 15 of 16 in the second half.
Jaci Bolden went 10 of 11 at the line finished with 26 points for GAC. Kaleigh Addie was 7 of 8 and finished with 19 points, while Trinity Thomas made 7 of 10 free throws before fouling out late. She finished with 11 points.
Christina Collins led the Lady Warriors with 22 points. Simmons went for 16 and Thompson dropped in 12. Princess Simmons had five points, Alexander finished with three and Christen Collins had two.
“We play aggressively anyway, so we’re going to have some foul trouble,” Watkins explained. “But we lost our leading scorer early, so we had to do some things differently. For us to have to compete against one of the storied teams in the state of Georgia without one of our leading scorers, I was very proud of the girls.”
Watkins also credited the play of the reserves, especially Thompson, who provided several clutch baskets to help keep her team in the game.
“We know that Zaira is capable of that because she did it last year as a freshman with a couple of 20 (point) and 10 (rebound) games,” he added. “We’re looking forward to her coming back next year, along with players like Zoey Gray-martin, Mercedes Thompson and Trinity Henry. We’ll have a couple of bigs coming back next year, so we’re going to try to do some things a little differently and get our bigs a little more involved, as well as our guard play.”