No. 1 and No. 2 will go head to head in 4A girls basketball state final

Marist and Kell have been the top two girls basketball teams in Class 4A all season, and they’re the only two left standing after both turned in dominant performances in the GHSA semifinals Saturday at Akins Ford Arena in Athens.

No. 1 Marist got 37 points from Kate Harpring, named earlier this week as one of five finalists for the Naismith High School Girls National Player of the Year award, and coasted to a 77-41 victory over eighth-ranked Cartersville.

No. 2 Kell trailed by one point at halftime but used a 20-2 run in the third quarter to pull away for a 69-49 victory over eighth-ranked Jones County.

Marist and Kell will meet for the Class 4A championship at 5:30 p.m. Thursday at the Macon Coliseum. Marist is seeking its third championship in five seasons, while Kell is aiming for its second in four years.

Harpring scored 14 points in the first quarter as Marist built a 23-9 lead and never let up. The War Eagles outscored Cartersville in every quarter, including 20-10 in the third quarter as Harpring spent considerable time on the bench and scored just six points.

Harpring, the nation’s No. 1 senior, a McDonald’s All-American and a North Carolina signee, also had seven rebounds and six assists. Katie Elder added 18 points for Marist, and Emily Morrison had eight. Trinity Montgomery led Cartersville with 13 points.

“I thought our defense started our offense in the first half,” Marist coach Kim Hixon said. “We were flying around and getting our hands on the ball. I thought we shared the ball well, the tempo was good, and the pace was good. I thought we got a lot of 50-50 balls, and that’s what you’ve got to do when you’re in the final four and championships.”

Kell led Jones County by 10 points midway through the second quarter but trailed 26-25 at halftime. Jones County’s lead grew to 28-25 on a basket by Aubrey Norris to open the third quarter, but Kell outscored the Greyhounds 20-2 over the next six minutes for a 45-30 lead, and Jones County never got closer than 11 points the rest of the way.

Maliyah Gilbert had nine points during Kell’s third-quarter run, scoring six points on free throws and the others on a 3-pointer. Gilbert led all scorers in the game with 23 points.

“In the first half, we had some girls in foul trouble, and that kind of took away from the way we want to play defense,” said Kell coach Kandra Bailey, who directed the Longhorns from a chair across the court from the team bench while recovering from the birth of her first child on Monday. “We were able to get them back in the game in the second half and that allowed us to play our defense, and it caused them to make some turnovers.”

Despite the Longhorns’ early foul trouble, Kell did major damage at the free-throw line, converting 26 of 34 attempts for the game. Jones County, on the other hand, converted just 13 of 27 attempts.

Kell got contributions from all of its starters. Asiah Thompson scored 12 of her 16 points in the second half. Kennedy Deese scored 10 points, McKenzie Green had nine and Lyric Watson added seven.