By Don Rowe
Down by a basket with less than six minutes to play, the No. 4 seed New Albany High School girls basketball team bagged two 3-pointers, converted a steal into a layup, and was 10-for-11 from the free-throw line to pull away for a 47-35 victory against No. 3 seed New Hope on Friday night in the second round of the Mississippi High School Activities Association (MHSAA) Class 4A North State tournament.
With her team trailing 29-27, Kelsey Ledbetter kicked off the fourth-quarter spurt with a 3-pointer. She found the range for a second trey a half minute later to give New Albany the lead for good, 33-29 advantage.
Shaitiuna Williams then turned her steal into the aforementioned layup and Williams added a second basket that was sandwiched around 10 successful trips to the charity stripe.
“Those two threes broke our back,” New Hope coach Chad Brown said. “We had just taken the lead and then No. 25 knocks down those two treys followed by the layup after the turnover to give them a six-point lead with a little over three minutes to play.”
Ashanti High hit two free throws and E’Lexis Jones hit two more to stretch New Albany’s lead to 12 points with 1 minute, 43 seconds to play. After missing her first one-and-one attempt, Ahlaeya Judon cashed in six-straight free throws in the final 1:12 to end the chance of a New Hope rally.
Brown played his five starters the majority of the game and they accounted for all of his team’s points, but those minutes took their toll down the stretch.
“We were gassed there late in the game and were just worn out there at the end,” Brown said.
In a game highlighted by contrasting halves, the Bulldogs led 13-10 at halftime. In the first 16 minutes, New Hope was called for 10 fouls and committed six turnovers, while New Albany was charged with six fouls and had four turnovers.
Moreover, both squads found the proverbial “lid on the basket” the first half, as their respective shooting percentages failed to dent 30 percent.
“We missed a ton of layups right at the rim,” Brown said. “Up to this game, we’d been making those shots, but if I had to guess, I’d say we missed at least 12 layups, maybe more.”
New Hope grabbed a 4-0 lead to start the game, but it failed to score again until a Juquala Sherrod basket made it a 6-2 with 25 seconds left in the first quarter. Twelve seconds later, Williams was fouled and converted both free throws to close New Albany’s gap to 6-4.
Reed McGlothin’s field goal gave the Trojans their biggest lead — 8-4 — before a 3-pointer by High and a putback by Cartiana Bailey gave New Albany a 9-8 lead. Sherrod scored on an offensive rebound with less than three minutes to play to give New Hope a short-lived 10-9 lead. A High free throw and a 3-point baseline bank shot by Williams erased the Trojans’ advantage and New Albany took a 13-10 halftime lead.
New Hope finished the first half with five field goals, no free throws, while New Albany was credited with four baskets — two of which were treys by Williams and High — to go along with a 3-for-8 effort at the free-throw line.
The teams battled on even terms in the third quarter. The Bulldogs doubled their first-half advantage to 25-19 on a Williams’ layup with seconds remaining, but Anna Prince’s 3-pointer at the buzzer maintained New Hope’s three-point deficit entering the fourth period.
New Albany’s Williams (16) and High (13), and New Hope’s McGlothin (11) were the only players to reach double figures, Prince and Sherrod had nine and eight points, respectively, while Kelsey Ledbetter had eight for the Bulldogs.
The Dispatch Editorial Board is made up of publisher Peter Imes, columnist Slim Smith, managing editor Zack Plair and senior newsroom staff.
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