Power Center Academy’s season ends in quarters
MURFREESBORO – Nick Wiggins sat in the southwest corner of Murphy Center, opposite of the Power Center Academy High School bench.
While Giles County celebrated its first boys basketball state tournament win since 2003, Wiggins sat in disbelief after his last second floater hit off the backboard, ending the Knights’ season Thursday afternoon, 70-68, in a Class 2A quarterfinal in the TSSAA Bluecross Boys Basketball State Championships.
“Our motto this whole year was to run it back,” Wiggins said, “to be back here and to get coach the gold ball because we didn’t win it last year.
“You win some, you lose some.” Power Center Academy (24-8) was quickly reminded of what a loss felt like in the state tournament. Last year, the Knights were the Class 2A darlings, winning its first ever state tournament game as the unknown charter school from Memphis.
This year, it was the squad that knew what winning in Murfreesboro felt like and the urge to win again, this time win the whole thing.
But it never got its first win.
And it was a familiar reminder how hard it is to lose this late in the season.
“It stings just like the first one,” Power Center Academy coach Marcus Williams said.
Wiggins, who finished with 27 points and nine rebounds, wanted so bad for this team to deliver Williams his first gold ball. But against a team it had the height and athletic advantage over, it got out-hustled.
Giles County out-rebounded Power Center and got more offensive rebounds and had 18 points off second chances to the Knights’ seven.
“We hang our hat with our size,” Williams said. “We hand our hat with our length and that’s alarming to me, for them to outrebound us.”
In preparation, Giles County practiced five offense vs. six defenders in practice. To counter Giles’ 3-point shooting, Power Center Academy practiced five offense vs. seven defenders. That still wasn’t enough to stop Jack Harper from shooting 5-for-8 from beyond the three.
“Everybody was telling us, ‘You got a tough draw,’” Giles County first-year coach Nick Campbell said. “So did they.”
Power Center was looking forward to playing fellow Memphis area team, Douglass, in the semifinals on Friday to decide which Memphis team was better and which team would play for a shot at a gold ball.
Douglass and Power Center Academy didn’t play at all this season. So, we’ll truly never know which team was better.
And not even winning a game in the state tournament makes it worse.
“We was looking forward to that matchup because we felt like we should have seen each other in the championship,” Williams said.
“It stings that we won’t be able to do that.”
Reach Wynston Wilcox at wwilcox@gannett.com and on Twitter @wynstonw__.