After championship season PCA looking for repeat in '22
PCA coach Jason Roberson had his expectations exceeded with a state title. (Tim Gayle)
By TIM GAYLE
As Jason Roberson reflected on his Prattville Christian Academy girls basketball team and the program’s first-ever state championship, he observed that the 2020-21 season was “an amazing ride with a bunch of young ladies who really grew up this year.”
A team that finished the regular season as the third seed in the toughest 3A area in the state emerged as the top team in the entire classification.
And what made the Panthers’ championship run even more impressive were the teams standing in their way. All of PCA’s six losses this season were to area rivals Montgomery Academy and Trinity. The Panthers took care of Trinity in the opening round of the 3A Area 6 tournament, rallying from a fourth-quarter deficit to eliminate the second-seeded Wildcats from postseason competition.
After losing to Montgomery Academy for the fifth time in as many games in the area championship, the Panthers would win the one that counted the most by rallying from a fourth-quarter deficit to beat the Eagles in the Southeast Regional championship game and advance to the state tournament.
“At the beginning of the season, I thought we were a really young team that was just good and decent,” sophomore forward Hannah Jones said. “But we needed to keep in our mindset that we were going to have to be strong and play hard and get better and stronger (throughout the season) and become more physical.”
With no seniors on the squad and four sophomores and one freshman playing crucial roles in assisting the team’s leading scorer, junior Ella Jane Connell, the Panthers could be excused from beating senior-laden Montgomery Academy. After all, next year would be PCA’s best year, when a more mature, more experienced team was ready to lead a charge for the state championship.
“A lot of people were maybe pointing toward next year and the future,” Roberson said. “These ladies came to work every single day and I just saw before my eyes them improve so much. They were growing up, literally, right before our eyes.”
All the right pieces return next season, with Connell as the only senior on a team that includes juniors CoCo Thomas, Makenna Simpson, Chelsea Mulliner and Jones and sophomore Avery Rogers.
Thomas said the goal for 2021-22 was to “keep pushing, working hard, getting better and better. I need to work on my ball handling. If we can work on our ball handling, we can probably help Ella Jane a little because we only have two ball handlers.”
The roles will be reversed next season. With everyone back, PCA is the obvious pick to win a state championship while Montgomery Academy loses every player with any real experience except guards Chloe Johnson and Virginia Meacham. Trinity, like PCA, returns plenty of experience in four starters and will add freshman Mya Moskowitz, who will join teammate Maddie Smith and are projected as two of the most dynamic freshmen in central Alabama.
But that’s for next year. For now, Roberson will relish his program’s first-ever trip to the finals and PCA’s championship after beating Sylvania in the 3A finals.
“They have unbelievably high character and they deserve this,” Roberson said of his players. “I know there are other teams that might have deserved it, too, and you don’t always get what you deserve, but I know this team deserves it.”
There is one potential negative to Prattville Christian Academy’s success. Should the Panthers reach the regionals in 2022, they will be bumped up to Class 4A in the next classification (2022-24) by the Competitive Balance Factor primarily based on their success in 2020-21.