by Rusty Ellis
The White County Warriors will meet the Stone Memorial Panthers in the Region 4-3A Championship on Wednesday after both teams advanced past the semifinal round on Tuesday night.
First, the Warriors took a big lead into the fourth and held on to win despite a furious run from Lawrence County that saw the Wildcats take a lead with just over 30 seconds left in the game.
The first quarter saw a barrage of Sparta threes, as a Thomas Brock triple and a Tripp Pinion layup gave the Warriors a 21-11 lead at the end of one. The second saw the Warriors continue to add on to their lead, as they took a 45-34 lead into the halftime break.
White County played a great third quarter and seemed poised to take a 16-point lead into the fourth, but Lawrence County knocked down a half-court shot at the buzzer to give themselves some life and trim the deficit to just 63-50 to begin the fourth.
The Warriors began to struggle against the trap defense Lawrence County used for most of the fourth, and with just over 30 seconds remaining, the Wildcats took the lead at 70-68. On the ensuing Sparta possession, Pinion converted an and-1 opportunity to give the Warriors the lead right back at 71-70 with 28.1 seconds remaining.
Sparta rebounded a miss to force the Wildcats to foul, but Pinion missed a pair of free throws and the Wildcats were given one final opportunity with 3.3 seconds remaining.
Their three-point attempt fell short however, as the Warriors held on for the 71-70 victory and clinched their spot in the region championship.
It was far from pretty for head coach Eric Mitchell, but his team lived to fight another day and he was proud of them for that.
“I told them we had to come out and punch them in the mouth early,” Mitchell said. “They hit a couple shots near the end of the second and third, but the guys just hung on to win…I told them this place has a little magic in it, I played here for five years and I thought something might happen tonight.”
The offense wasn’t a resounding success in the fourth quarter, but just like he’s done in seemingly every big game he’s been in, Tripp Pinion took over when the team needed him the most.
“I’m just proud of him and these guys,” Mitchell said. “He was more gutted that he missed the two free throws…these guys have worked so hard to get to this point, and it’s been a long time coming.”
The Panthers of Stone Memorial followed that up with a dominant victory over Spring Hill to clinch their spot in the region championship.
Stone got off to a hot start from three early, as Cade Capps buried a couple in the first to lead the Panthers to a 17-12 lead to begin the second quarter. There, Stone slowly began adding onto the lead and pushed it to 10 points before a layup at the buzzer gave them a 33-25 lead at the half.
The third is where Stone blew the game wide-open, as they outscored Spring Hill 27-6 to take a 60-31 lead into the fourth and everything was on cruise-control from there, as the Panthers advanced to the region title game with a 72-49 victory.
Matthew Bilbrey led the way with a game-high 22 points, while Capps followed close behind with 20 of his own. Brady Lane added 14 points in the winning effort as well for head coach Neil Capps.
“We knew what we would be dealing with in Spring Hill,” Capps said. “They’re able to get downhill and create shots for others…our help defense was really good, and we got out in transition really well, so our kids were ready to play.”
As far as what the difference has been the last two games, Capps says its the experience his players got from last season.
“They have experience in this game, and it’s really helping us right now,” Capps said. “I’m really pleased that they took care of what they needed to take care of tonight, because this is a really big game…everybody understands what region semis mean, because it guarantees you another game.”
And Capps also knows that things won’t get any easier on Wednesday.
“We’ve got to play those rascals from White County, so it definitely doesn’t get any easier,” Capps said. “We know what we’ve got in front of us. We’ve got a quick turnaround, and then we’ve got to be back down here ready to go to war again.”
White County and Stone Memorial will square off on Wednesday at the Hooper Eblen Center at 8:30 P.M.
