Gallery by Karen Akers
The question for Shady Spring entering sectional play was whether or not starters Kierra Richmond and Braylie Wiseman would be ready after injuries sidelined them the final few weeks of the regular season.
Both were in uniform Tuesday and made all the difference.
Richmond scored 16 points while Wiseman added nine to go along with 15 rebounds as the Tigers defeated Westside 48-32 in the sectional opener Tuesday at Shady Spring.
Early the host Tigers were on upset alert, connecting on just 14 percent of their shots in the first quarter (2 of 14), trailing 10-7. The outlook got bleaker with the Lady Renegades expanding their advantage to 17-10 after a pair of Kenzie Morgan buckets in the second quarter.
That’s when the return of Richmond paid dividends for the hosts.
The senior guard scored six points during a 14-0 Shady run that put the Tigers up for good.
“We knew that there was going to be discomfort for her in her first game back,” Shady Spring coach Brandon Bennett said of Richmond. “She’s practiced but not at the intensity that a game level is going to be, right? We knew she would have some rust and that was there in the first quarter. I think she was hesitant. She didn’t attack the basket like she can in the first quarter and really didn’t in the beginning of the second quarter.
“It was kind of like she had to get into the flow of the game and once she did it was kind of like she knew who she was. Once she started attacking everything kind of opened up for everybody else. That was really the key I thought. Once we started attacking it was a regular game.”
Neither team shot the ball well with Westside finishing the evening hitting at a 19 percent clip (11 of 57) and Shady at a 25 percent mark (16 for 63). It created an environment where neither team could shake the other until late.
The difference largely came in the second-quarter spurt. Shady finished the quarter shooting 43 percent from the filed while Westside shot 19 percent on 16 attempts.
A 17-10 lead turned into a 24-17 deficit for the visitors.
“We felt pretty good until that last two or three minutes of the second quarter,” Westside coach Darren Thomas said. “Kierra got loose on us and I think she had about seven or eight points in that spurt. We played hard, we just couldn’t make shots. We were looking at the scoreboard and I think we got outscored maybe 24-10. We were up 17-10 but after that we struggled. That second quarter really made the difference.”
Shady threatened to pull away in the third after Richmond launched a deep 3 to answer one from Westside’s Shyan Jenkins. The triple staked the hosts to a 34-23 lead but a free throw from Shayla Stacy and a layup from Kenzie Morgan kept the Renegades within striking distance heading into the final frame.
A 3-pointer from Kendra Pizzino pushed the lead back to with under six minutes to play but buckets from Morgan and Daisha Cline cut it back to six at 37-31 with under four minutes left.
From there the Richmond to Wiseman connection carried Shady home. Wiseman netted all nine of her points in the fourth quarter as the hosts closed the game with an 11-1 run, advancing to the sectional championship game for the second consecutive year.
“(Braylie) was huge on the boards tonight for us,” Bennett said. “She had a couple nice finishes for us under the basket so we’ve missed those two. We’re really glad they’re back. I thought she had a little rust there at the beginning but she got into a flow and started playing her typical game. I thought in that span where they started to make a couple shots and we collapsed defensively. Jenkins got open and hit a couple shots and outrgame plan was to keep her form getting a lot of open looks.
“We did a poor job defensively in that span and took a couple of bad shots. I don’t know how many 3s we took in that span but I’m sure it’s not good. Once we got back to our offense and worked that ball around, then things changed.”
Richmond led all scorers with 16 points while Morgan led Westside with 10. Daisha Cline hauled in 14 rebounds to go along with seven points for the Lady Renegades.
Westside finishes its season at 5-16 while Shady improves to 10-7
Shady Spring will play at PikeView Thursday at 7 p.m. in the sectional championship game.
Email: tylerjackson@lootpress.com and follow on Twitter @tjack94
W: 10 7 9 6 – 32
SS: 7 17 10 14 – 48
Westside
Sydney Cochran 2, Kaitlyn Lester 2, Kenzie Morgan 10, Shayla Stacy 2, Daisha cline 7, Emily Johnson 1, Shyan Jenkins 8
Shady Spring
Kierra Richmond 16, Brooklyn Gibson 5, Kellie Adkins 8, Kylee Barnes 4, Braylie Wiseman 9, Kendra Pizzino 6
3-point goals – W: 2 (Jenkins 2); SS: 3 (Richmond 1, Pizzino 2)
