AREA TOURNEY UPDATE: Trinity girls top Catholic; PCA girls win area tourney; Pike Road boys advance

Catholic’s Andree Aiken looks to pass against Trinity’s Maddie Smith in the Knights’ game against the Wildcats on Thursday. (By Tim Gayle)

By TIM GAYLE

For a quarter, the Montgomery Catholic girls could entertain thoughts of winning the 4A Area 4 tournament championship game.

Then, in a flurry of turnovers, the dream was gone, wiped out by a trio of 3-pointers from Emma Kate Smith as the Wildcats rolled to a 49-29 victory in the Trinity gym on Thursday.

After snapping a four-year playoff drought last year, Trinity (21-7) will play host to a sub-region game on Monday for the second consecutive year, facing the loser of Friday’s Headland-Ashford game at 7 p.m.

Catholic (13-8) will travel to play the Headland-Ashford winner on Monday at 7 p.m.

“The first quarter, everything’s going pretty well, then we just started turning the ball over and they got hot,” Catholic coach Jill Clark said. “They had a big second quarter and we just didn’t recover from that.”

The Knights struggled to connect in the game’s opening minutes but controlled the boards to negate eight turnovers that threatened to take them out of the game early. Tied at 6-6 entering the second quarter, Smith started launching 3’s, Brooke Avant added a pair of perimeter shots and the Wildcats were off and running toward a 24-point second quarter.

“Every game, at some point, we go through (scoring) droughts where we’re not hitting anything,” Trinity coach Blake Smith said. “We hate it when it’s at the very beginning of the game, like it was tonight, but we feel like we’ve got four girls that we’re pretty confident in, that out of those four some of them are going to start knocking down a few. So when (Smith) started hitting, Brooke Avant knocked down two, and you can make a quick, quick run.”

The Wildcats weren’t at their best, hitting just 27 percent (17 of 63) from the field, but kept mistakes to a minimum and feasted on 30 Catholic turnovers.

“They struggled turning the ball over,” Smith said. “Their physicality is far better than ours, so we have to try and make it difficult for them on the perimeter so they’re not as effective around the basket.”

Trinity led 30-13 at the half and three more 3s from Smith helped the Wildcats maintain that margin a quarter later. Smith finished with 18 points on six 3-pointers despite a focus from Catholic defenders to keep her from taking over the game.

“We tried,” Clark said. “She shoots the ball well and she distributes the ball well, so if you try to overplay her, she finds the open person. They just do a good job of finding the open person.”

Avant and Mary Alice Sasser each added nine for the Wildcats. 

Lorren Pharrams led the Knights with nine points and seven rebounds, followed by Harper Howell with six points and eight rebounds. While Catholic controlled the boards, Clark admitted her team must reduce the 18 first-half turnovers to have any chance of advancing past Monday.

“We’ve just got to do better,” she said. “We’ve got to work hard and take care of the ball and slow things down sometimes.”

BOYS CLASS 3A AREA 5 TOURNAMENT

Pike Road 74, Montgomery Academy 55

UNION SPRINGS -- Harrison Wallace scored 21 points and Blake Durham added 20 as Pike Road advanced to the championship game with a 74-55 win over Montgomery Academy on Thursday night in the Bullock County High gym.

Shaun Holmes added 17 points for the Patriots (19-5), who will face Bullock County for the championship on Saturday at 5:30 p.m. The two teams split the regular-season series, with each team winning on its home court.

Saturday’s winner will play host to Randolph County in a sub-regional game on Tuesday at 7 p.m., while the tournament runner-up will travel to Dadeville on Tuesday at 7 p.m.

CLASS 3A AREA 6 TOURNAMENT

Prattville Christian 55, Southside Selma 16

PRATTVILLE -- CoCo Thomas had 14 points and six rebounds to lead a balanced attack as the Lady Panthers cruised to the tournament title with a 39-point win over Southside on Thursday in the PCA gym.

Jacey Haynes added 11 points, 10 rebounds and four blocked shots for PCA, followed by Avery Rogers with 10 points, Chelsea Mulliner with eight points, eight rebounds and four steals and Ella Jane Connell with eight points, seven steals, four assists and four rebounds. 

Tori DeMaio grabbed eight rebounds and dished out four assists while Hannah Jones grabbed four rebounds. 

Prattville Christian (29-2) remains home to host a sub-regional game on Monday at 7 p.m. The Panthers will face the loser of Thursday’s Area 8 tournament championship game between Greene County and Hale County.