South Pointe girls, Rock Hill boys find different ways to defeat their cross-town rivals
In the second half, the South Pointe girls’ basketball team faced trouble.
This concept — “trouble” — was new to the undefeated Stallions in the still-young season. But it was lurking against Rock Hill on Friday night: With 6:30 left in the third quarter, one of the top guards in the state, South Pointe’s Jamia Blake, was subbed out after getting called for her third foul. Soon after that, Trinity Adams, another Stallion starter, joined her on the bench after picking up her fourth foul.
And then, with just over two minutes remaining in the third, Najah Lane — who’d been a spark plug all night for her team — also had to take a seat after her fourth foul.
“I thought our energy was just OK,” head coach Stephanie Butler-Graham said after the game. “It was good in the beginning to start. The foul trouble kind of took us out of it a little bit.”
But in the face of a tough question, in the first of two iterations of this rivalry game, South Pointe (3-0) was able to put together a response that led to South Pointe’s 55-38 win — and the response was spearheaded by senior guard Randi Neal.
“She’s a really talented player,” Butler-Graham said. “She has the ability to kind of take over a game. She’s that gifted and skilled and athletic and talented. And tonight we were able to showcase it a little bit.”
Neal finished with 25 points, 12 of which came in the second half.
“We can really count on each other,” Neal said postgame. “And having a team of seniors, if some of them are out or down, I know I have to take on that role of being a senior on the court and leading the team.”
Rock Hill girls free throw woes
The final margin didn’t encapsulate how close the game actually was.
For a moment, in fact, it seemed as if Rock Hill posed a confounding matchup for South Pointe: Its two lightning-quick guards — senior Unique Burch and sophomore Jada Jones — were able to break South Pointe’s normally-suffocating press; and the Bearcat defense wasn’t letting the Stallions’ fast-paced offense get easy fastbreak buckets.
But woes from the free throw line would ultimately do Rock Hill in. The Bearcats shot 19-for-36 from the stripe.
In other words, they lost by the same amount of points they left on the floor.
Head coach Kennan Orr said he was proud of his team for hanging tough with the 4A powerhouse: “This time last year,” he said, referencing his team’s 80-19 loss last December, “we went and lost by 60.”
Rock Hill was led by Burch who scored nine points (and was 5-for-5 from the stripe); Jones, who scored 12 points; and Gracie Wilson, who scored seven points and hit the Bearcats’ only 3-pointer.
The Stallions, in addition to Neal, were led by Lane, who scored nine points (including two and-one conversions) and Blake, who scored seven points.
“I think they’re almost comfortable playing with each other, which is great,” Coach Butler Graham said.
“They’re gelling, but now I want them to turn it up a little bit.”
Rock Hill boys use youth in win
While the South Pointe girls were led to victory by the team’s seniors, the Rock Hill boys — who defeated their cross-town rival, 54-46, on Friday night — needed their underclassmen to give them a boost.
And they did.
After entering the second quarter down two points, Rock Hill slowly and steadily pulled away from South Pointe as the game went on — allowing only eight second-half field goals and benefiting from two momentous fourth-quarter threes from sophomore Shane Blakeney.
“We came out of that loss (against Lancaster on Wednesday) and we had a point to prove,” Blakeney said. “Everybody was doubting us… But we came out with a win at the end, played hard, executed our stuff.”
The two teams seemed to contrast in a lot of ways: Rock Hill only had 11 players dressed out on its bench; South Pointe had 18. The Bearcats had one rim-grazing attempt; South Pointe had multiple dunks, including an alley-oop finished by O’Mega Blake that was ultimately waved off because a charging foul was called before the ball was slammed into the basket.
That said, both teams had plenty of growing pains to work through — but, as first-year head coach Doug Pearson Jr.’s big smile indicated postgame, the pains are easier to work through when the scoreboard is on your side.
“We were on the other side of it on Wednesday, when we played Lancaster and we went through those growing pains,” Pearson said. “Lancaster is kind of a similar team (to South Pointe). They pressed us all game. We just couldn’t make shots...
“I think we’re a team that’s inside out, whether it’s dribble penetration or throwing it to our post guys and trying to get buckets that way — so it’s always good any time we can hit a few from the outside.”
This win helped avenge a pair of losses Rock Hill took against South Pointe last season. The two teams will meet again on Friday of next week.
“I’ve been playing them for two years and that was my first time beating them,” said sophomore Luke Bracey, who added 12 points on the night. “We’ve come down to the wire almost every single time. It’s a great feeling.”
One last thing: Spirit squad rivalry
As the boys varsity game was heading into its final stretch, the Rock Hill and South Pointe cheerleading teams started engaging in a fierce, fun, rival-like pastime of their own.
It started with a Rock Hill cheer. Then, South Pointe countered with the same cheer, same cadence — but with a bit more volume and flair.
It was on from there: The two would trade time under the gym’s spotlight, retaliating with chants back and forth. Those in the crowd took notice of the competing cheers, and some people pulled out their phones to record the impromptu duel.
When the final buzzer sounded and the boy Bearcats were officially victors on Friday, the Rock Hill cheer team delivered the last chant the gym would hear. But both spirit squads exited the gym convinced they’d trumped the other — a fitting end to a night that proved that there are several ways to win.
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