HERNANDO — Zaria Jenkins is going to do her best to document the Columbus High School girls basketball team’s road to Jackson.
But the 6-foot junior is going to have to do a better job of being a little more discreet when it comes to taking pictures or using a tablet to take selfies and snapshots of her teammates.
With 58.8 seconds remaining in the game between the Hernando and South Panola high school boys basketball teams, Jenkins attempted to use Columbus coach Yvonne Hairston’s tablet to take a picture of the Lady Falcons gathered on the steps of the bleachers. Hairston, who was standing off to the right, intervened, though and reclaimed her tablet after Jenkins managed to snap off just one picture.
Those pictures just might go down in history as the first taken on the road to a state title. When the Lady Falcons look back, they will see a team that was ultra-relaxed and needed a little time to find its stride.
Kayla Rogers had 21 points and Jenkins added 13 Friday night to lead Columbus to a 46-34 victory against South Panola in the championship game of the Mississippi High School Activities Association Class 6A, Region 2 tournament at Hernando High’s Theron E. Long Gymnasium.
“Sometimes you can be a little bit too pumped, and I think that’s what we did,” Hairston said. “This is a big game. Nobody wanted to lose, and South Panola played extremely well. We had to match their intensity.”
With the win, Columbus (22-5) earns a first-round by in the Class 6A State tournament. It will play host to the winner of the Madison Central-Greenville-Weston game on Saturday. A win would send Columbus to Jackson State on March 5 for the tournament quarterfinals. The winners of those games will advance to Mississippi Coliseum for the semifinals on March 9.
Jenkins said the Lady Falcons were too relaxed before the game. She laughed when asked if she typically takes selfies or pictures prior to games. She was disappointed she had a chance to take only one selfie before Hairston took the tablet from her.
After a back-and-forth first half, Jenkins said improved defense helped Columbus regroup in the second half. She said she will continue to take selfies to do her part to keep the Lady Falcons on track.
“Selfies are our thing,” Jenkins said. “I will try to take four before the next game so we can get our thing going.”
Jenkins said her goal will be to double the number of selfies she takes before each of the next games team plays. She acknowledges that someone will have to clear room on the tablet because there are a lot of videos on it and she intends for the team to have a tournament run that lasts into the second week of March.
Rogers hopes to do her part, too, to make that happen. The 5-foot-11 post player continued to play bigger than her size. While she finds ways to score, Jenkins can hit from the perimeter or create her shot by going strong to the basket. Together, the undersized post player and the “camera girl,” as Rogers calls Jenkins, form a potent one-two punch.
The key from here on out will be not to come out “slacking,” according to Rogers
“We need to get it together and work hard on defense,” Rogers said. “When we work hard on defense, we kind of clamed down. That helped us out a lot.”
Hairston said Columbus had to match the intensity of South Panola at halftime. In a situation where your team has defeated the other team twice in the regular season, that can be easier said than done, but Columbus pulled away in the middle of the third quarter and turned a two-point halftime lead into an eight-point cushion entering the final eight minutes.
In the fourth quarter, a layup by Rokila Wallace (eight points) off an assist from Jenkins gave the Lady Falcons their first double-digit lead, 39-28. South Panola cut the deficit to 39-34 with 2 minutes, 12 seconds remaining, but a blocked shot by Jenkins led to a layup by Rogers. Jenkins added two free throws and a steal to help send Columbus on its way. Rogers helped seal the deal by hitting 3 of 4 free throws. She also had 11 of the team’s points in the first half.
“(Kayla) has played well all year for us,” Hairston said. “She is our backbone. She is the key to what we try to do. We tried to get Zaria going early and she got in foul trouble a little.”
Hairston feels her team is ready. She relishes not having to make a three-hour bus ride for its first game. She said also is excited about playing a team Columbus hasn’t faced this season. She feels her players will continue to be loose, like they were before the game. She hopes the team will learn a lesson from how it started against South Panola.
“We were just too ahead of ourselves, too aggressive,” Hairston said. “I want them to continue to be relaxed. It is going make a big difference when we’re playing a team we don’t know anything about and they don’t know anything about us.
“It was just an overall effort by the whole team. At least we got a home game. Like I tell them all of the time, you’re in control of your own destiny. Last year, we came in as a No. 2 seed and we had to go on the road. Now they have to come to us. Any time you’re playing at home, it makes a big difference.”
Follow Dispatch sports editor Adam Minichino on Twitter @ctsportseditor
Adam Minichino is the former Sports Editor for The Commercial Dispatch.
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