Gallery by Heather Belcher
Saturday night inside Colonial Hall, both Greenbrier East and Charleston Catholic did some things they liked and also did some things they would like to have back.
However, with the game on the line, East senior Jada Waller followed her coach’s instruction to the letter.
Miss the final foul shot.
With 1.5 seconds remaining on the clock and the Spartans clinging to a one point lead, a miss from Waller would virtually secure the win against the Irish in the Battle for the Springhouse championship game.
Waller missed and Charleston Catholic could not get a heave off to basket prior to the final horn sounding, securing a hard fought 55-54 victory.
The win made the Lady Spartans the first two-time Battle of the Springhouse champions on the girls side.
“Charleston Catholic is a fine team. In all honesty we had to switch (defenses) right off of the get-go and switch to a diamond-and-1 defense,” Greenbrier East head coach and current United States Senator Jim Justice explained. “Sandy (Banton) did a nice job guarding that kid. Alexis (Stack) came in and did some good stuff for us. The best thing of all was Jada taking those instructions right and missing that last foul shot on purpose. That is exactly what I told her.”
Charleston Catholic entered the championship tilt as the No. 5 ranked team in Class AA and clearly had every intention of upsetting the AAA No. 2 ranked Spartans.
Six points from Mary Rushworth ignited the Irish who built a 13-7 lead with 3:33 to play in the opening quarter.
Justice switched up the defense and the visitors immediately went into a scoring funk, cashing in only two field goals across the next 11 minutes.
“What I kept saying to them over and over was they are going to take away a lot of our offensive stuff. The only way we win this game was with our defense,” Justice said. “We changed and changed and changed. We caught them a couple of times sleeping and we jumped back in our diamond press. A lot of things like that. Once we switched the defense, they didn’t score.”
While the visitors were struggling to score, Greenbrier East heated up to build a 28-19 lead at the break. Waller tallied 12 points in the first two quarters followed by eight from Ava Workman and six from Hannah Fuller.
The lead went to 11 points with five minutes to play in the third period before the tables quickly turned.
Charleston Catholic changed the flow of the contest by cranking up its defense to close the quarter on a 13-5 run, trimming the Spartans’ lead back to 40-37 with eight minutes to play.
Even though the Irish appeared to be the team with the momentum, it was East that came out hot to start the fourth quarter.
Banton hit two of three free throw attempts and Fuller cashed in one of two. Kennedy Stewart added to the opening run with a bucket and a pull-up 3 to energize the home crowd.
With the lead back to 11, East appeared to be in the driver’s seat, only to see the Irish flatten the tires and storm back.
A scoop layup from Ali Wilcox and five straight points from Molly Messer kicked off an 11-2 answer by Charleston Catholic, making it a 50-48 game as the clock ticked inside two minutes.
Greenbrier East answered by putting the ball in its best shooters hands down the stretch and Stewart delivered four made free throws to keep the Irish at bay.
“Kennedy knocked them down for us, but don’t forget Alexis Stack making those foul shots for us. She really stepped up,” Justice said. “We blew some easy layups near the end and that didn’t help things, but (Charleston Catholic) is a really good team. Both teams battled really hard and both teams I feel like wish they had some stuff back, but it was a heck of a game.”
Stewart led all scorers with 19, while Waller added 13 and Workman scored 11. Messer had 16 for the Irish and Rushworth ended with 12.
CC: 16 3 18 18 – 54
GE: 16 12 12 15 – 55
Charleston Catholic
Ali Wilcox 6, Aurelia Kirby 8, Ilyauna Evans 8, Nora Aliff 4, Mary Rushworth 12, Molly Messer 16.
Greenbrier East
Ava Workman 11, Kennedy Stewart 19, Jada Waller 13, Alexis Stack 3, Sandy Banton 2, Hannah Fuller 7.
