PELAHATCHIE — Go ahead and call Starkville Academy the comeback champions.
For the second time in as many days, the Lady Volunteers basketball team rallied from a double-digit deficit to take home the school’s first-ever Mississippi Association of Independent Schools Class AAA state championship with a 47-35 win over Madison-Ridgeland Academy Saturday afternoon at East Rankin Academy.
“You want to just say ‘what are you waiting for?’ but I think a lot of it is our youth feeling their way through the game,” Starkville Academy coach Glenn Schmidt said.
“It’s like this group knows something I don’t know.”
After recovering to win its semifinal game from down 12, Starkville Academy found itself down 29-19 with 3 minutes, 44 seconds left in the third quarter forcing head coach Glenn Schmidt to call timeout.
The plan was simple. Get the ball to the Lady Vols senior point guard and sophomore center. The duo combined to have all but seven points as SA outscored the Lady Patriots 28-6 in the final 11 minutes of action.
“It just doesn’t get any better than beating MRA for the title that’s for sure,” SA junior guard Anna Lee Little said.
Two year ago, Schmidt was telling anybody who would listen she’d gotten the gift all coaches wanted in Prestridge when she transferred from Parklane Academy — a point guard with leadership skills.
“I got my Christmas present with Anna,” Schmidt said with a smile.
It was the senior’s back-to-back jumpers before the third quarter horn sounded that shifted the momentum in the gymnasium back to the orange and blue faithful.
“I was really feeding off my teammates because they make the difference in the world but when I hit that shot, it just seemed to get us going,” Prestridge said.
Prestridge would finish the game with seven points and was one of three Lady Vols to make the Class AAA all-tournament team at the end of the event. She was primarily responsible for MRA point guard Anna Claire Henderson having only two points over the final 16 minutes of play.
Richardson, who was matched up against MRA’s frontcourt star in Amber Landing, dominated the second half with 12 of her game-high 20 points in the final quarter and was a perfect 12-for-12 from the free throw line. She would join Prestridge and Anna Lee Little on the all-tournament team.
“(Landing) and I just kept going back and forth but I guess I found a way to pull through,” Richardson said. “It’s wonderful for our seniors and the whole team because this is what we worked so hard for.”
Starkville Academy (34-5) now has two of its season goals checked off with a perfect home record and a state championship. A list that was created after their final loss to end the 2010-11 campaign.
MRA coach Stephen Force was simply helpless watching Richardson gets touches in the paint and then dominate the offensive glass on any missed SA perimeter shot.
“We knew the game plan and that was to guard the perimeter as well as we could but then simply hope for the best with our matchup inside,” Force said. “Richardson is just so darn good and through three quarters we did a great job. Then she just took over at the wrong time.”
Force, like most other coaches during SA’s playoff run, decided to take away the Lady Vols leading scorer Little and limited her to just 11 points but it was the role players that once again took on the bigger challenge on both ends of the floor Saturday.
“For the last two games, somebody has said do not give Anna Lee Little a shot,” Schmidt said. “If they’re saying she’s not going to beat us, I’m saying ‘fine, if you’re going to give Richardson the ball, you gotta deal with this’.”
MRA (31-6) had three players all with 10 points (Henderson, Landing and forward Haley Cox).
In her nine years at Starkville Academy, Schmidt called this team and group of senior leaders he favorite to coach. It may be no coincidence that “special” group took home something no other SA team has ever accomplished.
“A lot of what people don’t understand is our seniors are role players and it’s about what they do in practice that pushes us,” Schmidt said.
“They don’t just say — I’m just on the team, they push our starters.”
That group now wants a bit more as they enter the MAIS Overall Championship at Mississippi College in Clinton either Tuesday or Wednesday with a matchup with Bowling Green School.
“We got some next week and we’re excited about that,” Prestridge said.
“We’re always going to push and play defense when it matters.”
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