JACKSON — It always helps to have a contingency plan.
When you have been to the state semifinals three years in a row, you have a sense anything can happen, which is why Starkville High School girls basketball coach Kristie Williams made sure to have several backup plans ready to show her players in practice to ensure they were prepared for everything against Biloxi on Wednesday.
One of the “what-if scenarios” involved who would take over guarding Biloxi’s BreBre Riley if Tabreea Gandy got into foul trouble. That’s the situation the Lady Yellow Jackets found themselves in when Gandy was whistled for her second foul at the 3-minute, 38-second mark of the first quarter.
No one panicked because Jariyah Covington was the next player up.
Covington embraced her role as “the shadow” by sticking to Riley for the rest of the game and denying her nearly every opportunity to get going. Covington’s effort was part of a stifling defensive performance by Starkville in a 34-20 victory in the semifinals of the Mississippi High School Activities Association (MHSAA) Class 6A State tournament at the Mississippi Coliseum.
Starkville (31-0) will take on Olive Branch (32-1) for the state championship at 6 p.m. Saturday in Jackson.
“You just have to play straight-up man-to-man defense and be tough,” said Covington, a 5-foot-3 junior, as she held a bag of ice to care for a blow to the nose she suffered while checking Riley. “She is their best player and makes them go, so if you take her out they struggle without her. To keep her contained was a big role today.”
Covington said she wasn’t as concerned with denying Riley the basketball as she was staying in front of her to deny her open lanes to the basket. The Lady Indians tried to spread the court in their half-court sets to give Riley plenty of space to operate around screens, but Covington was able to maneuver through the obstacles and stay with Riley.
“My teammates had my help if I got caught up in a screen,” Covington said. “I knew my teammates were going to help me until I got back and tried to push her left because she is dominant right.
“I was 100 percent confident my teammates would be there (if Riley got past her). I trust them with my life, so I know they had my back through everything.”
Earlier in the season, Covington talked about how she has raised her level of play after she thought she didn’t do enough (she scored only two points) last year to help her team in a 44-42 loss to Jackson Murrah in the Class 6A State semifinals. Covington doubled her scoring output from that game against Biloxi and added three steals. But the final number in her scoring column wasn’t as important as the one under the Lady Indians’ final scoring total.
“We did the switch in practice and it was understood you may have to guard No. 5,” Williams said. “Jariyah is a very confident player. She knew, ‘OK, coach, I have got it.’ She knew she had her teammates behind her t help if, for some reason, No. 5 got by. She is a very talented player, and she did get some driving lanes, but the next line of defense was there waiting for her. It was a total team effort.”
Williams said Covington’s effort on defense — including the blow to the nose she took in the fourth quarter trying to deny Riley (4-for-15 from the field, six turnovers) a drive through the lane — epitomized her growth from last season and understanding that a player can contribute in more ways than the scoring column. That the performance came in a state semifinal after back-to-back losses at this point in the season made it even more special.
“That’s what we try to teach all of the players,” Williams said. “It is not who scores the most points or whose face is going to be in the newspaper. It is all about what you bring otherwise. I think Jariyah did a great job (staying focused). They did a diamond-and-one on her the entire game. The she had to pick up and guard their best player, and she took it all in stride. She did everything we asked her to do. That shows her willingness to do whatever she needed to do to help her team.”
Follow Dispatch sports editor Adam Minichino on Twitter @ctsportseditor
Adam Minichino is the former Sports Editor for The Commercial Dispatch.
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