MACON -- Taylor County seized control of the game with a 13-1 run to start the second quarter and held on for a 67-54 victory over Turner County in the Class A public-school girls basketball championship game Thursday at the Macon Coliseum.
The victory capped a perfect season for third-ranked Taylor County (31-0) and made the Vikings the first girls basketball team in state history to win 11 championships. One of those two feats will be matched Friday in the AA final when undefeated Holy Innocents’ meets Wesleyan, which is shooting for its 11th championship. No other team in any other classification was undefeated this season.
“It’s big for our community,” Taylor County coach Matt Troutman said of the 11 titles. “We’ve got a small community, a tight-knit community, and anything we can do to make that community stand out on the map is good. Basketball has been good over the years in Taylor County, and the kids enjoy playing it, so it’s big for us.”
Troutman became the fifth girls coach in state history to win six state titles. Norman Carter, who won the first five girls titles for Taylor County, also has six, one at Butler High, a predecessor school of Taylor County.
Kelsie Towns was instrumental as Taylor County took a big lead in the second quarter of a game that was tied 14-14 at the end of the first. She made four of her five 3-pointers and scored 15 of her team-high 19 points in the first half, and Taylor County outscored Turner County 27-10 in the quarter for a 41-24 halftime lead. Destiny Mathis scored eight points in the quarter and finished with 11.
Turner County (28-3) cut the lead to 11 points at the end of the third quarter and got within seven points twice in the fourth, but Taylor County was 9-for-12 from the free-throw line in the final 1:48 to put the game away. Resheka Simmons made seven of her eight attempts during that stretch and finished with 18 points.
“I told them we were going to have to keep playing hard,” Troutman said. “We knew Turner County was going to come out and hit us hard, as hard as they could hit us, and I was right. They did, and they got back in the ballgame. We had to play with the same intensity we did in the first half, and we did.”
The play of Mylashia Yancey was the main reason Turner County stayed close. She was 12-for-21 from the field and finished with a game-high 28 points and 16 rebounds and added two assists and two steals.
Taylor County (67): M.Towns 9, Mathis 11, K.Towns 19, Simmons 18, Greene 2, McClain, Smith 4, Long, Thomas 1, Gibson 3.
Turner County (54): X.Office 5, Burwell, Yancey 28, Barnes 4, Daniels 4, Coley 1, Pickett, Ezell, Z.Office 10, Carithers, Whitehead, Galmer 2, Hamilton.
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