Marietta’s dramatic ride through the Class 7A girls basketball tournament will continue for another week.
The Blue Devils won their fourth consecutive playoff game by four points or less, beating rival and No. 2-ranked McEachern 62-61 in the semifinals Friday night at Marietta to advance to the championship game for the first time since 2009.
Fifth-ranked Marietta (20-5) will play for its first state title since 1951 when it faces No. 9 Woodstock at 5:30 p.m. on March 13 in the Macon Coliseum. Woodstock advanced with a 75-58 semifinal victory over Brookwood.
McEachern (18-5), which three nights earlier had eliminated top-ranked Collins Hill, came up two wins short of its sixth state title in 10 seasons.
Marietta trailed 59-57 with less than three minutes left but went 5-for-6 from the free-throw line and held McEachern to one more field goal, a putback by Denim DeShields with 3.6 seconds remaining. Marietta then lost the ball out of bounds under McEachern’s basket with 2.3 three seconds left, but the Indians’ ensuing long inbounds pass was deflected away as time expired.
Marietta’s four wins in the playoffs have come by a total of nine points. The Blue Devils beat Pebblebrook 52-49 in the first round, Parkview 58-54 in the second, and No. 3 Cherokee 54-53 in overtime Tuesday in the quarterfinals.
“I told them in our last huddle, ‘We’re all about the drama,’ Marietta coach Derrick DeWitt said. “I grew up watching soap operas with my grandma, so I’m kinda used to it. It’s not easy on parents and fans, but whatever it takes to win and be successful. Out of every trial we go into, we come out stronger.”
Marietta junior Chloe Sterling scored more than half of her team’s points, finishing with a career-high 33. She had 10 in the first quarter as the Blue Devils jumped out to a 15-10 lead, then 11 more in the third quarter as McEachern worked back to pull even.
“Since the playoffs started, the look in her eyes has changed,” DeWitt said. “Her dad told me that I would see a difference, and it is not disappointing at all. She’s locked in, and it’s really uplifting the players around her. She’s an awesome teammate, she’s awesome to coach, and she sees the game very well.”
The biggest names in the game, McEachern’s Jillian Hollingshead and Marietta’s Lauren Walker, were matched against each other for much of the night and held each other below their usual scoring performances.
Hollingshead, a McDonald’s All-American and Georgia signee who had 34 points and 17 rebounds in the victory against Collins Hill, battled foul trouble in the second half and finished with 10 points before fouling out with 6:04 remaining.
Walker, the Region 3 player of the year and a Michigan State signee, was limited to two field goals and 13 points. However, she was 9-of-12 on free throws, including two with 1:17 remaining that gave the Blue Devils the lead for good at 60-59.
Sterling hit two free throws with 43.2 seconds left for a 62-59 lead, and the Blue Devils held on.
Marietta led by as many as eight points in the second quarter and 33-28 at halftime, but McEachern outscored the Blue Devils 22-17 in the third quarter, pulling even at 50-50 on a layup by Sianny Sanchez-Oliver.
McEachern then outscored the Blue Devils 7-3 over the first four and a half minutes of the fourth quarter and led 57-53 on a layup by DeShields with 4:20 remaining, but the Indians scored just four more points down the stretch.
DeShields, the Region 2 player of the year, led McEachern with 22 points, and Sanchez-Oliver scored 13.
“I came here to build a program,” said DeWitt, in his second year with the program. “That’s what I was hired to do, and we’re doing it now. It helps when you have some amazing talent on your team, and a group of young women who believe that they can do something and work hard for it and don’t take no for an answer.”
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