WEST POINT — Don’t threaten Sarah Dill with punishment that involves running.

Brian Middleton would have loved to found that out a few years ago. But the Oak Hill Academy girls basketball team might not have been in the gym Monday afternoon gearing up for another practice if Middleton knew how well Dill responded to being told she was going to have to run if she didn’t make a free throw.

That made free throw and the eight Dill missed in the fourth quarter were topics of discussion as Middleton watched the Lady Raiders loosened up for practice. When you have been so close so many times, though, it is nearly impossible to determine how anyone is going to react, let alone one of the area’s top players.

“I knew I needed to make my free throws because they definitely could have come back and won, but I would get up there and look at the scoreboard and I would be like, ‘We are really about to win a state championship,’ ” Dill said. “I can’t even describe that feeling. I had so many emotions going through me and I was trying to focus.”

The work Oak Hill Academy (29-10) put in prior to the missed free throws turned out to be more than enough to lift it to a 51-42 victory against Carroll Academy on Saturday in the championship game of the Mississippi Association of Independent Schools Class AA State tournament.

The victory secured a long-awaited state title for one of the area’s most successful programs.

For Middleton, who has coached the Oak Hill Academy boys basketball team for eight seasons and is in his second season as coach of the girls team, a second victory against a team it lost to three times this season was a fitting way to win the school’s first state title in 26 years.

“It was a total team effort,” said Middleton, whose team rallied from a 12-point deficit in the third quarter. “We just found the right group of girls that was tough enough to get it done and say, ‘Hey, we’re not settling for anything else.’ At the end of the third quarter, a couple of them were like, ‘We’re not losing this. This is our game. We’re taking it.’ You could see it in their eyes.”

Dill said it was challenging to put the thoughts of all of the hard work and all of the times the girls basketball team came close only to fall short out of her mind when Carroll Academy started to foul her in the fourth quarter. She laughed and said she will accept Middleton challenging her with running as a punishment because he now knows it will be an effective motivator.

Dill, the team’s senior point guard, said this year’s team, which only has nine players, just came together and decided it wanted to win a state title. She acknowledged there were plenty of ups and downs along the way, but she said a “team effort” propelled Oak Hill Academy to the next step, which will be at 12:30 p.m. today when it takes on East Rankin Academy (26-10) in the MAIS Overall State tournament at Mississippi College in Clinton.

“Coach Middleton told us all year, ‘You are going to have a chance at a state championship. I am not saying you’re going to be in it. I am saying you have a chance and you’re going to have to really work for it,’ ” Dill said. “We worked for it the whole year. When we won the first game of the state championship (46-32 against Tallulah Academy), we knew we were going to go all the way.

“I don’t know why. I felt like everybody in the locker room after the game was really pumped and we were all excited. Everybody finally decided they wanted to win.”

A 44-19 victory against Claiborne Academy followed and set the stage for another game against Carroll Academy, the team that it lost to in the Class AA North State tournament. This time, though, Middleton said his team had the toughness it needed to finish. Anna Kathryn Childress and Tanner Grubbs had 15 points to lead the Lady Raiders. Grubbs also did serious work on the backboards, grabbing 18 rebounds.

“I just wanted to win so bad, and I would do anything it takes to win,” Grubbs said. “I could tell from the minute we left the school on Thursday we were so determined to get through the week and get to Carroll on Saturday so we could play them. I could tell we were really determined and we wanted it way more than they did because they had beaten us in districts and North Half. There is no way they could have wanted it more than we did.”

Alice Amelia Wooten, the only other senior on the team, said things have clicked with this team, which helped it realize a goal previous teams have been working hard to attain.

“I really knew we were going to be something some day,” Wooten said. “(Saturday) was crazy. I took a moment and looked in the stands at my parents. I knew I had worked all my life for that moment and it was finally happening. I wouldn’t want to experience it with anyone else. The team that I had was incredible.”

But it isn’t the end. Two more days of practice — and plenty of free throws, probably a few more for Dill — have Oak Hill Academy with the best in the state ready to extend its season a little longer.

“It’s going to be really fun,” Dill said. “I think it is just the icing on the cake. We won the championship. That is what we really worked for, and now we just get to go have fun. We’re still going to do good. We’re going to play hard and we’re going to work hard and we’re going to try to win.”

Follow Dispatch sports editor Adam Minichino on Twitter @ctsportseditor

Adam Minichino is the former Sports Editor for The Commercial Dispatch.