OAKWOOD — When the West Hall girls walked off the floor following their second straight 23-point loss in a two-day period in the Lanierland Tournament in December, the outlook for the Lady Spartans was as dark as the night sky outside.
They were just 6-6 with only one win over a team with a winning record [61-45 over future playoff team Jackson County] and they were already in an 0-2 hole in Region 7-AAA. (NOTE: For a look at all first round playoff games involving area teams, click here.)
“No doubt it was our low point of the season,” West Hall coach Bryan Richerson said. “We played terrible the whole tournament. We had depth issues and we weren’t playing anywhere near the capabilities we thought we had. Things could have gone either way for our season right there.”
It was around that time, during a conditioning session on the school track, Richerson asked his squad if they knew what “2-13-16” meant.
“Most of them didn’t know. Some did,” he said. “We told them it was the date of the Region (7-AAA) championship game. We told them they could be in that game if they started doing things the way we knew they could do them.”
The date has since come and gone. But Richerson and his staff were proved prophetic as the Lady Spartans knocked off Dawson County 71-53 last week in the region championship game for their first region title since 2002 in one of the most dramatic reversal of fortunes in recent memory.
“We always had confidence in them,” Richerson said. “We knew what they could do. They just needed to go out and do it. If Lanierland was our low point, the region tournament had to be our high point...so far.”
The win over the 2015 Region 7-AAA champs capped a 13-2 finish to the regular season after their Lanierland disappointment. Their only two losses were to the Lady Tigers and East Hall, but West Hall avenged both losses with back-to-back wins over both teams to close out the regular season and then they repeated the feat in the region tournament.
The wins pushed their winning streak to 10 straight as they prepare to play host to Adairsville Tuesday at 7 p.m. at the West Hall gym in the first round of the Class AAA state tournament.
Leading the way for the Lady Spartans has been sophomore phenom Anna McKendree, who has been lighting up the scoreboard averaging 22 points a game and striking fear into the opposition with her ability to score from anywhere on the court and in any fashion. She also has had an accomplice as well in junior Macy Passmore, who provides a solid second option averaging 13 points a game. They also have plenty of role players in Izzy Salgdo, Avery Prather, and Meaghan Kelling.
“Anna is just fearless out there,” Richerson said. “But Macy can be just as good at times. They pick each other up. When you have two guards like that that can score, and you play defense, you have a chance to win some games. But we have several girls who have had big games at times. We're more than just the 'Anna McKendree Show'.”
Pinpointing that exact moment when he saw things come together for the Lady Spartans is tough, he said. But Richerson noticed a change after the first two wins over East Hall and Dawson County.
“That was huge for their confidence. We had started playing pretty well just before but I think after (those two games) you could kind of see the lights come on pretty good for the whole team,” he said.
All confidence aside at this point, Richerson also knows that the cat is out of the bag concerning his young, and some might say, still inexperienced group. West Hall has just two seniors in Kelling and Tyanna Cantrell.
“We’ve been able to fly under the radar most of the season. I think people are starting to notice us, which is a good thing. But it also means we won’t be able to sneak up on anyone either,” he said.
“As for the experience, East Hall and Dawson County had tons and we really didn’t have that much playing in the big games like that and it worked out okay for us. You would probably rather have it than not. But the three games in the region tournament proved to me that they can rise to the occasion in the big moments.”
Can the Lady Spartans take their new-found confidence and ride it all the way to Macon? After all, they beat a pair of ranked teams four times over the last two weeks.
“I don’t know, but I would like think we have as good a shot as anyone else,” Richerson said. “We will need to continue to work hard and get some luck in the draw along the way. But we’re peaking at the right time. We’re excited to get going and try to keep it going a little longer.”
