SOUTHEAST 3A REGIONAL: LAMP boys, Trinity girls fall in semis
LAMP’s Quinn Sloans looks for an opening during the Golden Tigers loss to Montevallo on Monday in the Class 3A Southeast Regional semis. (By Tim Gayle)
By TIM GAYLE
LAMP coach Marcus Townsend knew his team would have its hands full with the inside threat of JaBrian Sullens and Jamarius Carter. He never counted on Michael Jones being the difference in Monday’s matchup at Garrett Coliseum.
Jones hit seven 3-pointers and handed out seven assists to lead the Bulldogs to a 63-60 win over LAMP in the Alabama High School Athletic Association’s Class 4A Southeast Regional.
“I’m confident in my shot,” Jones said. “I know it’s going to fall, sooner or later.”
Montevallo (25-6) will face Montgomery Catholic in the regional finals on Wednesday at 5:45 p.m., with the winner advancing to the state tournament in Birmingham. LAMP ends the season at 16-17.
“MJ kept us alive with his offense tonight,” Montevallo coach Greg Dickinson said. “He was matching their 3-point shooting. We knew they were going to clog the paint in and try to take our big guys away. It works out in (Jones’) favor when they do that.”
The 6-foot-6 Carter and the 6-5 Sullens were a handful, combining for 28 points and 27 rebounds, but it was Jones that forced the Golden Tigers’ hand by hitting 7 of 11 shots from beyond the 3-point arc, keeping the game close as LAMP’s strategy at focusing on Carter and Sullens paid off for the first 27 minutes of the game.
“We were going back and forth on trying to play ‘man’ on him and trying to cover everybody else,” Townsend said. “But the big kid, we knew if we went ‘man,’ there was a chance he would wear us out down low. So we stayed zone and they hit some big shots.”
It was LAMP’s first trip to the regionals since advancing to the state tournament in 2009. The 2017 team lost in the sub-regionals at Bullock County, the 2018 squad never made it out of the area and the 2019 team lost in the sub-regionals at Dale County.
“It feels great to be able to represent our school like that, especially since we’re regarded mostly as an academic school,” LAMP senior point guard Quinn Sloane said. “We had a really tough schedule this season. We beat some really good teams. Our goal was to get far in the playoffs like we did. It feels great. I feel like we’ve accomplished a lot.”
For 27 minutes, it looked as if the Tigers were going farther, using three 3-pointers from Mitchell Sloane in the first nine minutes of the game to keep the Bulldogs at bay.
“I’m always ready to shoot,” Mitchell Sloane said. “But it takes good passes from my teammates for me to hit shots early on like that.”
The Sloane twins, along with Micah Boone, kept up the pressure with perimeter shooting as the Tigers built a 10-point lead in the first half and led by as many as 11 early in the second half.
“We knew they were going to be one of the best shooting teams we’ve faced all year,” Dickinson said. “So our goal was to just chase them off the 3-point line. It didn’t work, so we got behind.”
LAMP continued to fight off the Bulldogs until Mitchell Sloane’s inbounds pass with 4:58 left was stolen by Jones and converted into a quick layup to give Montevallo a 56-55 lead, their first since 2-0. Boone answered with a 3-pointer, but Orlando Burks countered with one from the Bulldogs to put Montevallo in front for good.
LAMP’s final eight possessions included six missed shots and a turnover before Boone’s 3-pointer at the buzzer was off the mark.
“I thought we had some costly turnovers and I thought we made some bad decisions offensively at the end of the game,” Townsend said.
Jones led Montevallo with 25 points, followed by Sullens with 22 points and 17 rebounds.
Mitchell Slone led LAMP with 18 points, followed by Quinn Sloane with 16 points, seven rebounds, five assists and three steals, Boone with 13 points and Tyler Hoffman with nine points and nine rebounds.
“They’ve got three really good guards,” Dickinson said, “and our goal, going in, is they don’t come out of the game so just wear them down. We knew they would get their points at the beginning but if you wear them down, by the second half our defense was eventually going to tear their legs off. You notice, they started missing shots in the second half they weren’t missing in the first, that’s because they were getting tired.”
LAMP loses all five starters, but Townsend said the trip to the regionals was a great experience for the reserve players who will be starters next season.
“Just being on this big stage and in this environment, just to go through what we went through to get to this point, I think they learned a lot,” Townsend said. “It’s like I tell them all the time, can’t but one team win this championship. Coaching is about building character. Nobody’s going to remember who won the championship but when these guys come back and show love to the players that follow, that’s the greatest joy in the world for me.”
Trinity girls come up short
Trinity’s Emma Kate Smith dribbles through traffic during the Lady Wildcats game against Handley on Monday. (By Tim Gayle)
Mosquitos.
Pesky. Annoying. Swarming. Seems to fit the Handley girls’ basketball team.
“A lot of people who come watch us play, who don’t follow us during the season, after the game they’ll text me or call me and say, ‘Golly, y’all are like mosquitos, all over somebody, in their face,” Handley coach Courtney Screws said. “My girls are fun to watch.”
Fun if you’re a Handley fan. Not so much if you were pulling for Trinity in the Alabama High School Athletic Association 4A Southeast Regional at Garrett Coliseum on Monday afternoon.
Grace Rittenhouse scored 18 points and Teanna Watts added 10 as the Handley girls led from start to finish in beating the Wildcats 47-41 to advance to the school’s first regional final appearance since 2016.
The Tigers (24-7) will face Childersburg on Wednesday at 4 p.m., another step for a team still trying to erase last year’s heartbreaking 47-46 loss to Headland in the regionals.
“We talk about it every day,” Screws said. “We talked about it yesterday before we went home from practice, we talked about it before the game, we talked about it at halftime, we talked about it in my last timeout, how bad the 365 days have been since that one-point loss. We don’t want to go back into the locker room in tears, we want to be happy, we want to be cheerful.”
This time, it was the Trinity girls (22-8) who felt short-changed, playing with a mission of avenging last year’s loss to Childersburg in the regionals, but shooting just 27.8 percent from the field and making just six field goals in the second half with the game in the balance.
“We’ll appreciate that (successful season later),” Trinity coach Blake Smith said, “but we were looking forward to getting another shot at Childersburg. We’ll just have to get back to work. At the end of the day, I’m proud of the girls but if we go back and look at offensive rebounds, it’s going to be the difference. And that team’s the size we are.”
If there was one major difference between the two teams, it was the play of Rittenhouse, a junior guard turned forward who moved to the post for her game with Trinity.
“That’s the first time all year we have purposely put her on the post and tried to go into her,” Screws said, “because we’re always smaller than everybody. Phenomenal job.”
Rittenhouse was 8 of 18 from the field and had a team-high nine rebounds, part of a 47-34 advantage on the glass for the Tigers.
“I did not think she would score that well down there (in the post),” Smith said, “and she did.”
Neither team shot the ball particularly well, but a win makes up for poor shooting. Maddie Smith led Trinity with 15 points but was just 1 of 7 from the 3-point arc. Brooke Avant added 10 points before fouling out and leading scorer Emma Kate Smith was 3 of 11 from the field and managed just eight points.
“No. 12 (Emma Kate Smith) and 15 (Maddie Smith) actually played for the same travel ball team (Alabama Southern Stars) that I played for way back when and so did my sister,” Screws said. “So I knew if they were playing for that organization, they meant business and I knew they were good.”
Trinity cut the lead to a point on three occasions but could never tie the game or take the lead. After the last rally on a pair of Avant free throws with 4:59 left, the Wildcats had four possessions that resulted in a pair of turnovers, a pair of missed free throws and a missed shot before Rittenhouse scored on a basket to put the Tigers back in control.
The two turnovers were among 18 committed by the Wildcats on Monday that led to their demise.
“Typically, our pressure gets to people,” Screws said. “Girls don’t like people in their face.”