CLASS 4A SEMIS: Catholic boys advance while girls are eliminated
Catholic’s Josh Palmer works past Jackson’s Jonah Hughes in the Knights’ win in the South Regional semis at Garrett Coliseum on Saturday. (Tim Gayle)
By TIM GAYLE
The Catholic Knights had built an eight-point lead against Jackson in the second quarter but were struggling to hold it as the Aggies kept racing past defenders on the way to the basket.
Jackson would pull within a basket on three occasions early in the third quarter, but Catholic adjusted its defense and pulled away for a 64-53 victory in the South Regional semifinals at Garrett Coliseum on Saturday night.
Catholic (17-6) won its fourth straight game and has won 10 of the last 11 dating back to an area loss to Booker T. Washington on Jan. 10. The Knights will play the Golden Eagles for the South Regional championship on Wednesday at 2:15 p.m. Jackson ends the season at 26-5.
The Knights have defeated the Golden Eagles twice in three meetings between the 4A Area 4 rivals, but the prospects of playing a rival four times in a season doesn’t seem to both Catholic coach Mike Curry.
“It’s a good thing because that means we’re still playing.” Catholic coach Mike Curry observed.
Catholic has now reached the regional finals four times in the last seven years, but for many of the players, this year’s trip was a goal after reaching the 3A finals in 2021, only to lose in the sub-regional round last year.
“It means a lot because we lost last year earlier than we expected,” senior LJ Green said. “But we bounced back this year and came out hard.”
The determination showed as the Knights led for nearly the entire game, jumping out to a 7-0 lead, allowing the Aggies to take a one-point lead (at 12-11) for 28 seconds before Brennan Binns took a pass from Green and drilled a 3-pointer to give Catholic the lead for good.
But there were some anxious moments in the second quarter as the Aggies trimmed an eight-point lead to a point before Catholic took a 33-30 halftime lead into the locker room. A little over two minutes into the second half and the Knights went on a 10-0 run to grab command of the game.
“We backed up,” Curry said. “We were trying to play full court and that court’s a little bigger. There’s more room to cover. And those gaps are a little bit bigger and they were getting in those gaps and we weren’t getting over there, so we just told the guys to back up. Heels on the 3-point line and play good hard-nosed shell defense in the half court and that’s what we did. We kind of closed those gaps down a little bit.”
The Knights, which had hit just 4 of 12 shots in the second quarter, connected on 50 percent (9 of 18) of its shots in the second half, which helped extend the lead as well.
“I told them to quit rushing shots,” Green said.
And in the fourth quarter, when Jackson tried to rally one last time, the Knights were able to withstand the challenge, making 6 of 9 free throws in the final minute.
“The fourth quarter is our quarter,” Green said. “We’ve got a little mojo. In the fourth quarter, we’re going to score.”
Jayden Phifer, Josh Palmer and Green all had 16 points, followed by Binns with 11. Palmer also had 12 rebounds for a double-double, while Green had four assists and four steals.
Jayron Merrill led Jackson with 13 points, followed by Nasir Powell with 10.
“There were still some careless turnovers,” Curry said. “But we’re not perfect. We’re a work in progress and they’re trying and we’re moving on to the next round.”
Catholic’s Heaven Bailey works against Tyra Caves in the girls Class 4A regional semis on Saturday. (Tim Gayle)
Catholic girls eliminated
In a game where shots were at a premium, the Catholic girls hit a high percentage in the third quarter and scored eight of the last nine points in the quarter to take a five-point lead into the fourth quarter.
In the end, though, they had no answer for Naomi Jones as the Alabama signee disrupted the Knights on both ends of the floor while helping the Jackson Aggies to a 45-39 win in the South Regional 4A semifinals at Garrett Coliseum on Saturday night.
Jackson (29-4) will face UMS-Wright for the regional championship on Wednesday at 2:30 p.m. Catholic ends the season at 25-8.
The 6-foot-3 Jones had 14 points, 11 rebounds, three assists, three blocked shots and three steals, single-handedly dictating the game on both ends of the floor. Catholic couldn’t run because Jones is an effective press breaker and the Knights couldn’t drive the lane in transition because Jones would block or alter shots. Defensively, the Knights put a player in front and back of Jones, primarily Allyse Rudolph in front and Hannah Smith in back, which meant the remaining four Jackson starters only had to contend with three Catholic defenders.
“It’s difficult because she’s a presence on defense, too,” Catholic coach Jill Clark said. “You’ve got to shoot over a girl that’s 6-foot-3. On offense, they’ve got some people that can shoot from the outside but it’s pick your poison. Are you going to go get the girl outside or keep some people on her? If I’m going to put two on her, somebody’s going to get a shot somewhere.”
The Knights’ strategy worked throughout the game, but in the end Catholic couldn’t find the offensive spark it needed in the final minutes. With Rudolph and Smith guarding Jones, the Jackson star took just eight shots but Jameshia Powell hit a pair of 3-pointers in the first quarter to stake the Aggies to a 13-7 lead and Tyra Caves hit a 3-pointer in the third and another crucial one in the fourth period to fuel a Jackson rally.
“We started off on the same page, then we kind of got off the same page and started standing around,” Jackson coach Trinnia McKenzie-Smith said. “Our post players (Jones and Erica Walton) picked up those two early fouls and had to sit and we had to put some younger girls in there and this is their first time here and they looked like a deer in the headlights.”
Jones didn’t spend much time on the bench, entering the game after a two-minute break early in the second quarter and promptly scoring twice. But where Catholic got roughly the same amount of shots each quarter, they made twice as many in the third quarter, forcing Jackson to turn to its star.
“We were telling them when you’ve got somebody in front of her and behind her, we’ve got to get somebody in the corner to knock down some shots so we can pull them off of her and get her more touches,” McKenzie-Smith said. “They did a good job defending her the whole game.”
Trailing by seven, Jones converted a three-point play two minutes into the fourth quarter, hit a pair of free throws a minute later, watched as Caves’ 3-pointer cut the deficit to a point, then gave her team the lead with 3:03 remaining when she got open in the lane.
The game was tied with 2:07 remaining, but the Knights never scored again. Jackson hit 4 of 4 free-throw attempts and added a Powell layup to close out the scoring as Catholic missed a pair of shots and closed out the game with three turnovers.
“We were doing well, then we went cold,” Clark said. “We didn’t hit our shots and they did, just a little swing. We didn’t match them shot for shot.”
Caves added 12 points for Jackson, followed by Powell with 10.
Rudolph led Catholic with 19 points and seven rebounds, but the remainder of the Knights went 7 of 27 from the field as Jones altered shots the entire game. Smith added 11 points and 10 rebounds but was 4 of 15 from the field. Heaven Bailey struggled to get off shots as well, finishing with six points on 2 of 8 shooting.