Check out The Herald’s 2022 All-Area girls basketball teams, honorable mentions

It’s not clear you could’ve scripted the Rock Hill girls basketball team’s season to go any better.

They had deservedly high expectations to start the year. They had All-State returners. Multi-time All-Region players. Scorers. They had guards who played like forwards and forwards who ran like guards. (And that’s not hyperbole: Point guard Jada Jones was the team’s second-leading rebounder. And starting forward Makayla Street, who at 5-foot-7 admirably stepped into the forward role because her team needed her to, will probably be a guard when she plays ball in college.)

There was early-season success. There was a mid-season struggle. And then, like all good stories, there was a run — one that saw 21 straight wins en route to delivering Rock Hill High its first girls basketball state championship.

This historic season couldn’t have been orchestrated without head coach Kenny Orr, and that’s why The Herald’s sports department elected to make him the 2022 All-Area Coach of the Year. Orr has been at the Bearcat helm for 11 years and has won five region championships since the 2015-16 season. He’s helped build Rock Hill into an undeniable power and has fostered a “sisterhood” in the program that’s easy to see.

But until this year, a state championship had always eluded his team.

That’s all changed now.

“They just kept trucking along,” Orr said of his players after the state final win. The same, perhaps, could be said for himself. “This is just so gratifying.”

The Herald’s 2022 All-Area Player of the Year was Orr’s everything-player, and that was his aforementioned point guard: Jada Jones.

The senior guard, who signed to run track in college at Dartmouth, affected the game in every way possible. She averaged 11.9 points, 7.6 rebounds, 5.1 assists and 4.8 steals a game, and she played her best basketball when it mattered most: She took over the Upper State title game and notched a double-double in the state championship game. (And in the North-South All-Star game? She was herself once more — and was named the game’s MVP.)

For her career, Jones recorded over 1,000 points, over 750 rebounds, over 500 assists and over 500 steals. At 5-foot-6, she was a double-double machine and a threat to notch a triple-double every once in a while. (One time her junior year, she even notched a quadruple-double.) She was a four-time All-Region player and an invaluable assistant architect for the Bearcat program that Orr is still building.

There was plenty of basketball talent in York, Chester and Lancaster counties this season. See The Herald’s full All-Area selections below.

ALL-AREA GIRLS BASKETBALL

Player of the Year: Jada Jones, Rock Hill

Coach of the Year: Kenny Orr, Rock Hill

FIRST TEAM

Jada Jones, Rock Hill.

Laila Hankerson, Rock Hill. The junior state champion was Jones’ reliable partner in the Rock Hill backcourt. The 5-foot-6 guard scored 14.6 points, 4.5 assists, 4.4 rebounds and 3.6 steals a game, and she was named Region 4-5A Player of the Year and made the All-State team because of that. With several starters graduating in 2022, Hankerson will be a key leader for the Bearcats again next season.

Skyla Tuthill, Catawba Ridge. The 6-foot Copperhead was phenomenal in 2021-22. And she was only a freshman. She finished the season averaging 21.5 points and 6.5 rebounds a game, which was enough to earn her team Region 3-4A Player of the Year honors. She and the rest of the young Catawba Ridge team (including Tuthill’s freshman backcourt mate Makailah Davis) made the Upper State title game — the deepest run in the playoffs the program has made since it opened in 2019.

Nadia Dial, Fort Mill. The 6-foot senior guard/forward missed a big chunk of the season due to an injury, but she still had a remarkable final run as a Yellow Jacket. The West Point commit was the Region 3-5A Player of the Year and a 2021-22 All-State selection. She also finished the season with a double double — averaging 16 points, 11 rebounds, two steals and 1.6 blocks per game in region play.

Tamia Watkins, Andrew Jackson. The Volunteers fell one win short of a state championship, but it’s clear they have plenty of potential. And part of that potential is in their star forward. Watkins has been a contributor since she played as a seventh-grader, and as a freshman in 2021-22, she averaged 20.9 points, 11.8 rebounds and 2.5 blocks per game. She was also named this year’s Region 4-2A Player of the Year and was an All-State selection.

SECOND TEAM

Darby Grigg, Northwestern. The Trojans made huge improvements this year, and a lot of that had to do with the growth and dependability of their 5-foot-6 junior guard. Grigg ended the season averaging 15.6 points, 2.6 assists, 2.3 rebounds and 4.3 steals a game — in some games never coming off the court. She was also a 2021-22 All-State selection.

Alyssa Hankerson, Rock Hill. Sometimes it’s hard to believe how much talent Rock Hill had. The Bearcats’ point guard was a North-South All-Star game MVP. Their shooting guard was the Region Player of the Year. And neither was the team’s leading scorer. That moniker belonged to Alyssa Hankerson — Laila’s freshman sister (and twin to Alana) who averaged 14.8 points, 2.7 rebounds, 2.2 assists and 2.1 steals a game. It’s worth noting that Alyssa made 91 threes in 2021-22. (That was more than anyone in South Carolina 5A basketball.)

Camille Kerridge, Nation Ford. The Falcons have a lot to be excited about in the near future, and a lot of that has to do with their freshman point guard. In her first season, Kerride averaged 20.1 points, three assists, five rebounds and three steals a game. She also shot 68% from the free-throw line on the season. She was an All-Region 3-5A and All-State selection.

Najah Lane, South Pointe. Under head coach Stephanie Butler-Graham, you can bet that the Stallions are going to be good. And they were again in 2021-22. Lane, the team’s senior point guard, helped lead her team to a share of the Region 3-4A title by being an extension of her coach on the court: She averaged 9.3 points, 4.7 rebounds and 3.4 assists per game.

Carrigan McCloud, Indian Land. McCloud led her team statistically in almost every category this year. That included points (18.1 per game), rebounds (8.4), steals (2.8) and assists (1.1). McCloud was also an All-Region and All-State selection in 2021-22.

HONORABLE MENTIONS

Makailah Davis (Catawba Ridge), Tatum Postel (Catawba Ridge), Makayla Street (Rock Hill), Gracie Wilson (Rock Hill), Alana Hankerson (Rock Hill), Ny’Sheria Wright (Clover), Samara Lucas (Clover), Ty’Keria Witherspoon (Clover), Tegan Bertwell (Clover), Clare Moore (Fort Mill), McKenzie Evans (Northwestern), Ja’Niya Cunningham (Northwestern), KeMarja Peay (Lancaster), Ny’KeriAsia Coleman (Lancaster), Victoria Morris (South Pointe), Zaria Bell (South Pointe), Shanyia Gray (York).

Other winter sports All-Area teams will appear in The Herald this week. The wrestling All-Area teams were published online Tuesday morning, and the boys basketball All-Area teams will run online Thursday.

Sam Copeland and Jay Edwards contributed reporting.

This story was originally published March 30, 2022 at 6:00 AM.

Alex Zietlow

The Herald

Alex Zietlow writes about sports and the ways in which they intersect with life in York, Chester and Lancaster counties for The Herald, where he has been an editor and reporter since August 2019. Zietlow has won nine S.C. Press Association awards in his career, including First Place finishes in Feature Writing, Sports Enterprise Writing and Education Beat Reporting. He also received two Top-10 awards in the 2021 APSE writing contest and was nominated for the 2022 U.S. Basketball Writers Association’s Rising Star award for his coverage of the Winthrop men’s basketball team.