Party like it’s 1983: Andrew Jackson wins first state championship in over 40 years

The Andrew Jackson Volunteers beat the Landrum Cardinals 78-60 in the 2024 2A girls’ basketball state championship game in Florence on Friday.

It started off rocky for Andrew Jackson, with the Volunteers trailing Landrum 12-7 at the first-quarter media timeout.

Then sophomore Ayona Alexander subbed into the game.

The six-foot forward had been out of the lineup over five weeks with a bone fracture in her left foot, but you couldn’t tell by how she played.

Alexander scored seven of her 20 points over the rest of the quarter as Andrew Jackson cut its deficit to 21-18 at the end of the first quarter.

“I just had to get them going, but we did it together as a team,” Alexander said. “I will never say that I brought us back in the game, but we played as a team, and we won.”

Landrum led 23-20 with seven minutes remaining in the second quarter, but Andrew Jackson began to ramp up the defensive pressure.

The Volunteerss responded with a 13-0 run over the next four minutes.

Sophomores Alexander and Ni’Yonna Asbelle and juniors Emiley McCall and Tamia Watkins combined for six steals during that span as Andrew Jackson took a 33-23 lead with three minutes left — a lead it would not relinquish.

The Volunteers went into the half leading 37-30.

“We talked about deflections,” Andrew Jackson head coach Steven Fair said. “A deflection is a win, so we started getting deflections on the defensive end. Our pressure picked up a little bit, and then it turned into easy baskets on the other end, so that’s always key.”

Coming out of halftime, Andrew Jackson and Landrum traded baskets early, and the Cardinals cut Andrew Jackson’s lead to just 43-40 with 4:26 left to play in the quarter, but a 12-7 run by Andrew Jackson to close the quarter gave it a 55-44 lead to start the fourth quarter.

The Volunteers carried that same momentum into the fourth quarter, extending the lead to 68-53 with just over three minutes left in the game.

The crowd and players on the bench started to get into it as they could sense the victory, even when Landrum scored five quick points to cut Andrew Jackson’s lead to 10.

The Volunteers ended the game on a 10-2 run as the players rushed the court in celebration when the final buzzer sounded.

Watkins led all players with 26 points, 19 rebounds and six steals to go along with five assists, displaying the talent that made her the girls’ basketball player of the year in Class 2A.

She said she felt that she and the team had been disrespected all season.

Now they have the hardware to back it up.

“A lot of people talk down on (Andrew Jackson),” Watkins said. “When I came back, I knew I had something to prove to everybody. Not just for myself, but for everybody. I’m tired of people looking at me like an underdog. I deserve that No. 1 spot, and I just wanted to show people who I am. It’s not only me; God gave me the talent. I just want to use it to show it to the world, show to the people, especially the younger kids that look up to me. It means a lot for my teammates to keep me up. Everybody has been helping everybody, and we all just came out with a win.”

Asbelle is one of six players on the team who was a member of the 2022 team that lost in the state championship. She also remembers the heartbreaking way last season ended in the semifinals.

Asbelle didn’t have the best shooting night early, but her impact on the court could not be understated, especially defensively. She finished the game with three blocks and three steals to go along with 19 points as she played a crucial part in Andrew Jackson’s defensive press.

“It feels great to be on the winning side,” the 5-foot-10 guard said. “Coming up short last year in lower state and coming up short two years ago in state, and it just feels good to win state. Man, we haven’t won it since 1983. To win this, it’s just big for our community and big for our school.”

As the team and fans celebrated the victory, one fan shouted, “We’re going to Disney World.”

While that might or might not be part of Andrew Jackson’s celebratory plans, one would be hard-pressed to convince the Andrew Jackson community that the happiest place on earth wasn’t the Florence Center Arena on Friday.

Andrew Jackson finish the season 27-4.

This story was originally published March 1, 2024 at 12:00 AM.