South Pointe girls’ basketball downs Ridge View in quest to rewrite last year’s story
With just under five minutes left to play in the fourth quarter on Monday night, South Pointe girls’ basketball guard Randi Neal rose up.
A few moments prior, a Ridge View defender had collected a loose ball off an errant pass and was sprinting to her team’s hoop.
The Blazers, who ultimately fell to the Stallions in Rock Hill, 57-44, in the third round of the 4A state playoffs, had been playing behind all game — unable to access the spark that had made them South Pointe’s proverbial Achilles heel throughout the year. They’d defeated the Stallions in January (one of two South Pointe losses on the year) and had forced overtime against them a few weeks later.
But this play could’ve cut the game’s margin to the single digits and began a Ridge View comeback: It could’ve seated the South Pointe student section — a hodgepodge of students wearing cowboy hats and red body paint, waving large flags with the Stallion emblem on them. It perhaps could’ve temporarily quieted the South Pointe cheer squad, who’d served as a baseline bundle of energy for the crowd all night.
But instead, as the Ridge View player rose up for a layup, so did Neal. And Neal bullied the ball out of bounds before it left the Ridge View player’s hands.
And the place went wild.
Neal, a Johnson City Smith University commit, had been honored at center court after eclipsing 1,000 career points with a bucket at the end of the first half. She’d scored 14 of her team’s 57, including a pair of threes in the game’s second quarter.
But her block late in the fourth quarter, above everything else that happened on Monday night, seemed to embody South Pointe’s mantra as it inched closer to the stage where last year’s unfinished business — the state title that the Stallions fell one win short of last season — awaits them.
“We really wanted this game,” Neal said postgame, her celebratory 1,000-point-ball held in her left arm. “It was something we’ve been patiently waiting on all season.”
‘One thing on our minds’
Late in the first quarter and through the first few minutes of the second, the Stallions went on a 9-0 run and didn’t look back. By halftime, South Pointe was up 30-16, and the team was able to keep the Blazers at arm’s length all game.
South Pointe senior guard Jamia Blake, who brought the ball up for most of the second half, was largely unstoppable. She scored 23 points in every way fathomable — from the free throw line (she went 9-9); from the 3-point-line (nailing two in third quarter); and on the fast break.
Blake, like Neal, said this game is important because it marked the Stallions’ return to a second consecutive Upper State title game.
“It’s just great to be back again,” Blake said postgame, her jersey soaked with water after her team’s postgame celebration. “Most teams can’t make it back to back. Everybody was gunning for us since the beginning of the season. So it’s just great that we have another chance to get a ring this year.”
She then was asked what made this game different than South Pointe’s previous two matchups with Ridge View.
“Earlier, we weren’t really experienced,” Blake said. “We were still trying to get to know each other. But once we started rolling, we made it through a lot of games, persevering. And we knew we would have to knock (Ridge View) off the list, so we just came in here with one thing on our minds.”
That one thing? Prove that South Pointe can return to the championship game — and, this time, win.
“A lot of people sleep on us,” Blake said. “And we’re going to wake them up this year.”
South Pointe aims to get a ring
Last season, at the beginning of South Pointe’s playoff run, head coach Stephanie Butler-Graham gave each of her players a ring pop and told them not to open it until they’d won the 4A state championship.
Butler-Graham admits to being as superstitious as they come. The coaching staff all wore the same Jordan 11 Retro’s on the sideline on Monday night. The one time she carried a different bag to school earlier this season, her team lost to Westwood, she recalls with a smile.
And this year, likely because of how things happened last year, she said she didn’t hand out ring pops.
“We didn’t do it again this year, but some of them still have their ring,” Butler-Graham said.
When asked who still has theirs, Butler-Graham tapped Blake on the shoulder and asked if she still had her ring pop — the candy that could remind her of last year’s missed opportunity and could possibly serve to motivate her toward returning to the state championship game.
Blake smiled and shrugged: “Mine’s still in the closet.”
Basketball scores from around the Tri-County
The Saluda Tigers defeated the Andrew Jackson Volunteers, 50-34, in the third round of 2A girls’ playoffs Monday night in Kershaw. Saluda led 32-24 at the end of the third quarter, but outscored the Volunteers 18-10 in the final eight minutes to pull away for the victory. The Volunteers ended the season with an overall record of 23-2.
The Clover Blue Eagles defeated the Byrnes Rebels, 63-55, in the third round of the 5A girls’ playoffs Monday night at Byrnes. The win improves the Blue Eagles to 27-2 on the year. They will play the Irmo Yellow Jackets for the Upper State Championship on Saturday at 5 p.m at Bon Secours Wellness Arena in Greenville. (Irmo topped T. L. Hanna 51-36 in the third round on Monday night.)
Clover led 22-14 at the end of the first quarter, but Byrnes battled back in the second period and cut the deficit to 35-32 at halftime. Aylesha Wade led the charge in the first half with 20 points. She added four more in the third quarter, and Taylor Thomas scored six in the period as the Blue Eagles outscored the Rebels 18-8 to forge a 53-40 cushion when the quarter was over.
Byrnes regrouped in the fourth period and charged back into the game. They used a 13-6 run in the middle of the final quarter to slice the Clover advantage to 59-53 with 1:40 remaining in the contest.
Clover led 61-55 in the final twenty seconds when Marianna Ballard sealed the game by making both ends of a one-and-one free throw for a 63-55 lead.
Wade finished the game with 28 points. Thomas joined her in double figures with 10.
This story was originally published February 24, 2020 at 10:42 PM.
.jpeg)