Class 2A blog: Championship previews

(The championship brackets of the boys and girls can be found on GHSA.net.)

Also, Episode 23 of The Class 2A Blogcast is live and it previews the state championship. You’ll hear from the coach of each finalist, as well as from members of the media who cover those teams. You can listen in the embed below, or download here and wherever podcasts are available.

A quick note before we get to the previews: On Tuesday, the Fannin County Lady Rebels tweeted out a video to clarify online chatter that the clock didn’t start on time in their semifinal matchup against Butler. If the clock had in fact been late starting, that would have given the Lady Rebels two extra seconds in a game they won at the buzzer.

But that’s not what happened, according to Fannin County.

The initial video floating around was from Fannin Rebel TV’s YouTube channel, which had a camera on the clock, and that camera was not in synch with the cameras on the game action. Here’s the Lady Rebels’ tweet of the game as captured by Hudl.

To preview the championships, we’ll take a look at each team heading into the big games.

Fannin County Lady Rebels: Turning a new leaf with the new year

On Dec. 30, the Lady Rebels closed out the year in a not-so-ideal fashion, losing 66-43 to Rabun County. That followed a nine-day layoff from their last game on Dec. 21 — a 61-27 loss to Lumpkin County. With their season seemingly spiraling out of control after a middling 6-4 start, Lady Rebels coach Ryan Chastain stood in the corridors outside the locker room, talking with his staff about how to correct the course.

“We said, OK, if we really feel like we’ve got the kids to make a run at this thing — and we felt like we did — we’ve got to start doing some things differently,” Chastain said.

To that point, they Lady Rebels had played in a 1-3-1 zone defense just as they had the previous season, when they were 8-2 at this same point. It was that night when the staff made the decision to switch to a man-to-man set.

“We looked at our personnel and determined hard-nosed man-to-man was the change we needed to make,” Chastain said. “So we scrapped everything and emphasized to the team that was going to be our identity moving forward.”

When they returned to action to kick of the new year, they beat Chattooga 68-65. That started a 16-game win streak the Lady Rebels will take into Thursday’s championship.

Having no losses this calendar year reinforced to Chastain that he and his staff made the correct adjustment. However, when the Lady Rebels reached the semifinals and played Early County, he knew the team would have to revert to a zone defense to have a chance against Lady Bobcats forward Makayla Timpson.

Timpson is a 4-star recruit ranked No. 48 overall in the country for the Class of 2021 by ESPN and has signed with Florida State. She’s averaging a monstrous 32.5 points, 14.6 rebounds, 4.8 blocks and 3.4 steals.

By halftime, Timpson had scored 31 points on the Lady Rebels’ “Triangle and 2″ zone defense, and Early County led by 11. However, Chastain knew how hard Timpson was having to work to get those points and was banking on that wearing her down in the second half. That’s what happened, and they Lady Rebels rallied to win 66-64.

That set the stage for their epic semifinal matchup against Butler. With the game tied at 41 and Butler having possession, Lady Rebels freshman point guard Courtney Davis stole the ball with 3.2 seconds remaining, dribbled across half court and delivered a perfectly-placed pass to a cutting Becca Ledford, who put up the game-winning layup just as time expired.

“It was just one of those games that was mentally exhausting,” Chastain said.

Now it’s on to Josey, where they’ll play for their first state title since winning 2A in 1999.

“They’re very long and athletic and they’re a very good defensive team,” said Chastain of Josey. “I think they’re going to try and apply pressure to our guards, but we have a lot of faith in our guard play here.”

Josey Lady Eagles: Finally beating Laney

For the last 13 years, the Lady Eagles had been competing in the shadows of Laney, a team three miles down the road. Both schools are perennial contenders and even played each other in the 2018 Class 2A title game.

For whatever reason, it was always the Lady Wildcats who prevailed.

This season started as if the rivalry would yield the usual results of 2-3 wins for Laney when the Lady Wildcats won their first meeting 62-58 on Jan. 12, which extended their series win streak to 37 games. However, on Feb. 5, Josey snapped the streak with a 46-43 win. They’d beat Laney again less than two weeks later, 45-44 in the Region 4 semifinals, on the way to earning a No. 2 seed.

“Being that we’re such a close rivalry, those last 13 years we’ve kind of been like the little sister,” Lady Eagles coach Jawan Bailey said. “I think we’ve been capable of winning those games for the last few years now, but I think that mindset of them being the bigger sister has held them back mentally. So, to see us get over the hump this year was a big deal.”

Despite being unranked, the Lady Eagles have a strong resume, with wins aside from Laney twice including semifinalist and Region 4 champion Butler, No. 3 East Laurens, once-ranked Elbert County and No. 4 Washington County in the semifinals.

Against Washington County, the Lady Eagles used a 12-0 run in the third quarter to pull away, then hold on for a 47-43 win and a chance at their first state title since 1998, when they won 3A.

Bailey attributes the team’s success to date to its continued maturation.

“We’ve really picked up on our discipline,” Bailey said. “We’ve always had the athleticism and talent. In the early parts of the seasons, we really locked in on pushing the girls to hold themselves and each other accountable on offense and defense and all of the small things. Our play got better and that is what has been key for us down the stretch.”

With Josey playing its semifinal matchup on Friday, that gave Bailey a chance to attend the Butler-Fannin County game and scout the team they’ll face in the championship.

“They’re a really good team,” said Bailey of Fannin County. “They have a lot of great players who do a lot of things well, they’re well-coached, and they’re disciplined in what they do. They have a lot of heart and fight, and I can tell by their record and the teams they’ve beaten that they won’t be pushed over, or give up easily. You have to be aware of a team like that because they can beat anyone on any night.”

Bailey said the Lady Eagles must stay on the path that got them this far to beat Fannin County.

“We have to be disciplined in what we do,” Bailey said. “We’ve done that and been on the winning side throughout the playoffs. So, we don’t want to do anything differently, but just be a better version of ourselves.”

Columbia Eagles: ‘The cardiac kids’

Longtime Eagles coach Dr. Phil McCrary guided Columbia to five state titles and three runners-up finishes in an eight-year span from 2006-2014, so he knows how to maintain a championship-level team through roster turnover. And with each new team comes different strengths, weaknesses and personality traits.

McCrary is dubbing this season’s Eagles team, which is seeking its first title since winning 3A in 2012, as the “cardiac kids” for taking games down to the wire. That tendency has been on full display during the playoffs, and if not for Eagles guard Kawasicki Ricks, the team might have been eliminated in an earlier round.

By losing to Lovett in the Region 6 semifinals, they settled for a No. 3 seed and a “Road Warriors” designation. In Round 1 against No. 6 Chattooga, Ricks was 8-for-8 free-throw shooting down the stretch to lead the Eagles to a 74-67 win. In Round 2 against Callaway, his layup with 10 seconds left proved to be the game-winner in a 57-56 final. In the quarterfinals against Washington County, he went coast-to-coast with 3.9 seconds and hit a short jumper off the glass at the buzzer.

“Each year, every team has a special component and this year’s team lives and dies on the edge,” McCrary said. “So they get the nickname, ‘cardiac kids,’ because they keep that blood flowing and that heart pumping. But they play hard and they never quit.”

No heartburn medicine would be necessary in the semifinals against a Lovett team that beat them 72-59 in the Region 6 semis, because the Eagles jumped out to a 9-0 run to open the game and won 67-52.

Now it’s onto another team from Region 6, the Pace Academy Knights, who beat them 67-56 on Jan. 11.

The Eagles are playing better than their first meeting with Pace, when they were still making the adjustment of attending class via the all-virtual learning method DeKalb Schools has adopted this school year. Not being in school full-time, players would only see each other at practice and games, which McCrary said made gelling as a team difficult.

Eventually, however, the Eagles turned a corner.

“We never gave up on it,” McCrary said. “Sometimes, you’ll be faced with difficult situations, and it’s how you adapt to those situations and take advantage of them. You play the cards and the hand that you have.”

McCrary admits the deck will be stacked against the Eagles against Pace. He likened the matchup Custer’s Last Stand and David and Goliath, two instances where the underdogs prevailed.

“It’s going to be a mountain to climb,” he said. “Especially when you have four Division I players (the Knights have college prospects Matthew Cleveland, Cole Middleton, Madison Durr and Josh Reed) compared to what we have. But that’s not to take anything away from our kids. (Knights coach Sharman White) does well with the personnel that he has and I’m accustomed to his teams.

“It’s going to be a good game, I can tell you that.”

Pace Academy Knights: A repeat quest to repeat

There are similarities between this year’s Knights and the Knights teams that won back-to-back 2A titles in 2016 (2A) and 2017 (3A). Like the ‘16-17 teams, the Knights, who won the 3A championship last season before reclassifying back to 2A, are trying to win consecutive titles, with one coming from 3A and the other from 2A.

They also have a 5-star recruit rated as one of the country’s top players and ACC-bound. Back then, it was forward-center Wendell Carter, who was a one-and-done at Duke before joining the Bulls as the seventh overall pick of the 2018 NBA Draft. Now, they have 5-star wing Matthew Cleveland, who is rated in the 247Sports composite as the no. 22 overall player in the country for the Class of ‘21 and has signed with Florida State.

One difference, however, is the coach. Then, it was Demetrius Smith. Now, it’s Sharman White, who took over the Knights ahead of the 2018-19 season. Smith came to the program after spending two seasons as an assistant on Georgia State’s staff, but earned national recognition for his work at Miller Grove, where he coached the Wolverines to six consecutive 4A titles from 2009-14 and added a seventh in 2016.

After winning his eighth title last year, White and Pace are both looking to add another repeat to their resumes. As his experience demonstrates, White has been successful at keeping his teams hungry the year after winning state, rather than overconfident.

“Winning the first championship is always the most challenging,” White said. “To repeat takes character, and that’s where it starts with us. One of the things we don’t want in our program is complacency. We understand complacency gets us replaced, so we have to play with a sense of urgency, and kudos to them for doing that as young men and as teens.”

Given strict protocols, the Knights’ character was tested all season, and playing stiff competition between non-region and 6-2A left little room for complacency. If their season to date were to be graded, they would receive a 99-of-100, with 1 point docked for their 63-59 season-opening loss to 3A’s top-ranked Sandy Creek. They haven’t lost since, with the win column now serving as the mark of one long winning streak that includes 7A’s No. 2 Grayson and No. 7 North Gwinnett, 1A Private’s No. 3 Galloway and region rivals Lovett (twice) and Columbia.

In the playoffs they beat No. 8 Butler in the quarterfinals and No. 5 Thomasville in the semis.

As tough as their schedule was, it could have been tougher if not for three national invite-only events they were scheduled to play in getting canceled.

Nonetheless, the Knights have passed nearly every test this season and have a No. 18 national ranking in the MaxPreps computer polls to show for it. In their latest test, they were forced to travel to Thomasville to play the Bulldogs who, like Pace, were a No. 1 seed. The universal coin toss favored Thomasville, and that forced the Knights into a four-hour bus ride south that stops just short of the Florida border.

They still won by double digits, 56-44.

“We weren’t happy (about the coin toss) but that’s part of it,” White said. “We can’t predict what a coin flip will do, but we decided not to wine about it. To continue our journey means traveling to Thomasville. We took a same-day trip, and that may have affected us at the beginning but we played through it, and we did that in a tough environment — great crowd, great energy — against a strong, formidable team.”

The Knights’ last test will be in another road trip, and against their region rivals the Eagles, whom they beat earlier this season. And White is more than familiar with Eagles coach Phil McCrary and Columbia, having been part of DeKalb Schools at Miller Grove.

“We have to be patient,” White said. “Whoever makes the least mistakes will be the champion. I have a ton of respect for coach McCrary and Columbia and we’ve had some epic battles from when I was at Miller Grove.

“This will be a great game to watch and be a part of.”

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Look for the AJC’s 2A title game coverage on Thursday, and check back here next week for a season recap.

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