AISA CLASS A GIRLS FINALS: Lowndes girls dominate in win over Evangel

Halley Briggs (22) and the Lowndes Academy girls accept the championship trophy from AISA executive director Michael McClenden after defeating Evangel Christian Academy in the Class A final. (Tim Gayle)

By TIM GAYLE

It’s not often a team rushes onto the court in a mad dash for a runner-up trophy, then delivers the trophy -- and a celebratory hug -- to their head coach after losing a championship game by 27 points.

Meet the Evangel Christian Academy girls’ basketball team, a program that was making its eighth consecutive trip to the Alabama Independent School Association’s Elite Eight this season but a group of girls that were making their first-ever postseason trip.

Lowndes Academy rolled over the Lions 45-18 on the way to the AISA Class A girls’ basketball state championship on Friday, but you would have never known it from watching the Evangel players.

“When we looked at our signup sheet at the beginning of the year, we only had eight players,” Evangel coach Haley Rosa said, “knowing that one of our starters was not coming back from a knee injury and that we were going to be young.

“We just worked for everything we’ve got. Not that Lowndes didn’t. Lowndes is a great team and we knew we were going to be outmatched and we knew that it was going to be a struggle for us today. But they (Evangel players) accomplished a goal that they did not even think was going to be possible. We didn’t think we’d even win a game, much less be in this position at this time of year.”

 They didn’t win a game for almost a month, starting the season at 0-7 and finishing 10-15 after playing a game in which they sank just three of 16 shots in the first half while committing 14 turnovers.

“We knew their pressure would be tough on us,” Rosa said. “We’ve got two ninth graders handling the ball most of the time and we knew they would be pressuring us and we would struggle to score. I thought defensively we played pretty good. We broke down a couple of times and knew we couldn’t afford mistakes. We just had to figure out a way to keep playing and battle through it.”

On paper, Evangel’s post game was a challenge. In reality, Lowndes’ post tandem of senior Haley Briggs and sophomore Camryn Hess combined for 27 points.

“Haley and Camryn, I think, are two of the best posts in the AISA, much less whether it’s A, AA or AAA,” Marshall said. “It’s not just on the court. They hang out together, they joke with each other, they challenge each other.”

Lowndes (13-6) was the defending state champion, but while the Rebels were considered the favorite in the state tournament, it wasn’t as easy as it looked. 

“I lost my best defender (from last year’s team and) I lost my point guard, which was like 50 percent of our offense,” Lowndes coach Matt Marshall said. “I knew it was going to be a learning curve. I’m so proud of these girls from what they were to where they are now and how they jelled and came together. It was never a thought that we were going to repeat. It was a goal, but it was never a thought it was going to be easy.”

The Rebels, like the Lions, struggled through the first month of the season, passing on the opportunity to participate in a Christmas tournament so that they could stay in the gym and work on improvement. 

“At the first of the year, we struggled,” Briggs said. “After that, we pushed. Christmas came in and we were pushing. After that, we knew we were coming back to today (in the finals). Coming in at Christmas, we had a losing record. After that, we started completely over. We started with fundamentals. We started doing drills after drills and had to get our fundamentals back up to make it here today.”

After scoring a game-high 15 points in her final game at Lowndes, Briggs was happy she could team with Hess to take control of Friday’s game against the Lions.

“We had been practicing all week for defense like that,” Briggs said. “Yesterday, we practiced strictly for them. Coach Matt kept saying we had to step up. ‘Haley, you’re a senior, you have to step up.’ Finally, it hit me that it was my last game and I was like, I have to step up.”