The cast of stars may be different, but the result was the same for the Baylor Lady Red Raider basketball team.
With UTC commitment Mya Long scoring 14 points and earning MVP honors for her work, the Baylor girls claimed their fifth straight Best of Preps basketball championship at Chattanooga State Friday night with a 43-30 victory over arch-rival GPS.
Baylor is now 6-4 with four straight wins while the Bruisers are now 8-5.
Baylor coach John Gibson takes great pride in the fact his team wins most of the time as a result of defensive intensity. That was certainly the case in this latest win, but they also did a great job of controlling the ball on the offensive end, limiting shot opportunities for the Bruisers and scoring timely buckets when they counted the most.
“That was another typical rivalry game with GPS, but our goal was to guard them hard and keep them from scoring. We held them to 30 points, so I’m really happy about that,” Gibson said following the game.
GPS junior Brooke McCurdy can light it up from outside, but the Lady Red Raiders did a great job of limiting her touches. She was held just six points after scoring 27 on Thursday.
“We knew that if GPS was going to win this game, they were going to do it without her getting open looks. It’s all about us and how we do what we work on in practice every day, but it’s not easy to win this tournament as these girls are under a lot of pressure.
“We’re going to be good on defense and that will help us win a lot of games, but the offense will eventually catch up. Mya Long is coming into her own and she had a great tournament. It’s one thing to be a big-time scorer, but she does so much more that doesn’t always show up in the scoring summary,” Gibson praised.
Long scored four of the first six points as Baylor grabbed a 6-2 lead in the opening four minutes of the game, but Lindsey Wyatt sank a jumper from the line and McCurdy canned a 3 from the wing to give GPS its only lead at 7-6 with 51 seconds left in the opening quarter.
Grace Wardeberg scored on a drive along the baseline right before the horn to give Baylor an 8-7 lead when the first stanza ended.
The Bruisers went more than four minutes without scoring in the second quarter as Baylor scored nine straight points with four different players scoring at least two points.
Wyatt and J.J. Dunigan scored back-to-back buckets to get GPS within 17-11 with three minutes remaining before Wardeberg scored on a drive down the lane in the final minute for a 19-11 lead at intermission.
Dunigan scored the first bucket of the second half as GPS got within six at 19-13, but Long had two 3s around a free throw by Mackenzie Jennings for a 25-14 lead with 5:06 left in the third.
The score never got any closer as Baylor was content to play ball control on the offensive end. The Lady Raiders had lots of open shots, but rarely took them as they were content to run the clock.
JuToreyia Willis converted a three-point play with 5.7 seconds left as the Baylor lead was 34-23 with one quarter remaining.
GPS got within nine points three times in the final quarter, but Cheyenne Lindsey and Wardeberg both sank two free throws in the final minute for the 13-point margin of victory.
GPS coach Wes Moore hates losing, but he loved the effort his girls put forth.
“We just played our guts out for the entire 32 minutes and I couldn’t be any more proud of our effort,” he began his post-game comments.
“We did a great job of executing our game plan, but the sad fact is we didn’t enough shots to win it. That’s the best game we’ve played since I’ve been at GPS as we competed to the best of our ability against a very good basketball team for 32 minutes,” Moore praised.
Long tallied 14 points to lead Baylor while Willis was next with 10. Wardeberg finished with eight points.
Dunigan was tops for GPS with 10 points. Meg Priest had seven while McCurdy finished with six.
Baylor had an unofficial 23-16 edge on the boards as Lindsey had eight and Willis six for the Lady Raiders. Jennings had five for the Bruisers.
Red Bank, Notre Dame and Central won earlier girls consolation game.
Red Bank got 18 points from Mya Kennebrew and 13 from Layla Babb in a 41-37 win over Tyner in the battle for third place. Keniah Watkins had 13 for the Lady Rams while teammate Roshawn McGee finished with 10.
Notre Dame got 14 points from Averie Sheppard in a 49-25 win over CSAS in the game for fifth place. Kate Ford had 10 points for the Lady Irish while Lennex Walker had 11 for the Lady Patriots.
Alivia Smith scored 16 points and JaNya West 10 as Central pinned a 41-29 loss on Soddy Daisy in the day’s opening game for seventh place. Alexis Trimiar had nine points for Soddy Daisy while Emilee Dent and Lydia Hall both added eight.
GIRLS CHAMPIONSHIP SUMMARY
GPS 7 4 12 7 -- 30
BAYLOR 8 11 15 9 -- 43
GPS (30) – Wyatt 4, Dunigan 10, Jennings 1, Priest 7, McCurdy 6, Little 2.
BAYLOR (43) – Willis 10, Lindsey 4, Camp, Conley 5, Wardeberg 8, Long 14, Keller 2, McKnight.
3-POINT GOALS: GPS 3 (Priest, McCurdy 2); Baylor 3 (Conley, Long 2).
ALL-TOURNAMENT: Central’s Alivia Smith, Lennex Walker of CSAS, Notre Dame’s Kate Ford, Red Bank's’s Mya Kennebrew, Tyner's Keniah Watkins,Brooke McCurdy and Mackenzie Jennings of GPS, JuToreyia Willis, Cheyenne Lindsey and MVP Mya Long of Baylor.
(Email John Hunt at nomarathonmoose@gmail.com)