Angela Reynolds knew about Kiandria Patterson and Maggie Proffitt.
The Northwest Rankin High School girls basketball coach didn’t know the rest of the players on the Columbus High team had improved so much.
After watching Columbus roll to a 63-34 victory in the first round of the Mississippi High School Activities Association Class 6A North State tournament Monday, Reynolds is convinced the Lady Falcons have the pieces to get to the “Big House.”
“If they play as a team and everyone is playing together, they will get to the Coliseum,” said Reynolds, referring to the Mississippi Coliseum in Jackson, the site of the state tournament.
Patterson scored a game-high 21 points, while Daisha Williams had 17 and Proffitt had 10. Kierra Erby added six points and Kameron Corrothers added five, as the Lady Falcons also received contributions off the bench from Laterrica Jefferson, who sprained an ankle in the district title victory against Tupelo, Brelana Coleman, and Porchia Brooks.
“We did have some younger kids step up and play well,” Columbus coach Yvonne Hairston said. “Kiandria had a monster of a game penetrating, pitching, and scoring. She did what she needed to do. Maggie played well. We just missed some shots, but you’re going to get that. But we are excited with the effort.”
The victory pushes Columbus into the Final Four of the North State. It advances to play Horn Lake, which beat Greenville 55-30 on Monday, at 7:30 p.m. Friday at Southaven High. The winner of that game will secure a berth in the state tournament and will advance to the North State title game Saturday.
Hairston said Columbus got off to a slow start because it didn’t know what to expect against Northwest Rankin. She said the team settled down after the first quarter and picked its spots to run after controlling the boards.
When forced to play in a half-court set, Columbus showed the versatility to use players other than Patterson and Proffitt in the post. It also showed the patience to exploit mismatches and to stay active on offense to get better shots.
Patterson said the Lady Falcons talked all last week and leading up to the game about getting revenge from last season, when Northwest Rankin eliminated them from the North State tournament. She said she kept reminding her teammates of the feeling the team had after its season ended.
“I kept reminding them we needed to make them feel how we felt last year,” Patterson said.
Hairston feels the experience the team gained last season in winning a district title and getting to the second round of the North State tournament has helped everyone gain confidence and not be awed by the fact they again are one step away from getting to go to Jackson.
“What makes us so much better this year than we were last year is we relied too much on Kiandria’s offense,” Hairston said. “When she is scoring 38 points, that means most of the time somebody else is not scoring. But when you have a balanced attack and she comes in or whoever gets their 20 and everybody else shares 10 to 12 or six or eight, that is what makes us so much different. We don’t have to rely on Kiandria and Maggie scoring the basketball. We can rely on Kameron and Daisha and Terrica and Kierra and Porchia to step up and hit shots.”
Reynolds said Northwest Rankin (14-17) wanted to be deliberate on offense and control the tempo. That strategy worked in the first quarter, as it was 5 of 15 from the field and dictated tempo to finish the first eight minutes tied at 12.
From there, though, Reynolds felt her team shot itself out of the game. Columbus capitalized on a 0-of-6 stretch with two turnovers by Northwest Rankin to go on a 12-0 run to close the second quarter and take a 30-18 halftime lead.
Columbus (25-2) used another 12-0 run in the third quarter. This one spanned 4 minutes, 46 seconds and came after Northwest Rankin had cut the deficit to 34-25.
“This year, the difference is they have other players contributing,” Reynolds said. “Our focus was Patterson and Proffitt. They’re going to get their points. But we weren’t expecting the others girls to step up.”
Last year, Taylor Beverly paced Northwest Rankin with 36 points in an 85-69 victory against Columbus at Horn Lake. The Lady Cougars had three other players reach double figures in that game. None of the seven players who played key roles in Northwest Rankin’s march to the Class 6A state title last season returned this season.
Meanwhile, Columbus has matured from that disheartening loss, which saw them trail by as many as 24 points in the second quarter, and showed again Monday it is much better when it is the sum of its parts.
Patterson, who had a solid performance in front of assistant coaches from the University of Alabama and the University of South Carolina, said it took Columbus time to work the nerves out of its system. She said opponents run the risk of concentrating too much on her or Proffitt because the rest of the Lady Falcons have matured and are ready to do their parts to push the team to a North State title and a trip south to play for an even bigger championship.
“Me scoring 21 points means I don’t have to do as much as I did last year,” Patterson said. “That means somebody on the team has grown in the offensive part in the offseason. It means I can be more effective in other areas like assists and rebounds and I am doing my job as a point guard more than I did last year.
“There is definitely another gear we can go to. We have a gear where we don’t even set plays up and we run and gun. That gear, people haven’t seen yet, and I guess we are just saving that for when we go to Jackson.”
Adam Minichino is the former Sports Editor for The Commercial Dispatch.
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