Eight top programs in Class A Division I and II have advanced through the state playoff brackets and will play for state championships this week at the Macon Coliseum. Here’s a look at the matchups:
Division I Boys: Mount Vernon vs. Paideia (Saturday at 1 p.m.)
Top-ranked Mount Vernon enters the state title game with a large semifinals-loss-chip on its shoulder.
It was the sting of defeat in last year’s semifinals that powered the Mustangs this season after a program-first appearance last season. Vernon lost to eventual champion King’s Ridge 53-48 and since then, it has been a goal to return.
After beating Mount Pisgah 77-39 in the semifinals, it appears to be Mount Vernon’s championship to lose. There are four key players powering the Mustangs on the offensive side -- junior K.J. Garris leads with 18 points, five rebounds and three assists per game. Senior Sha’yah Goba adds 15 points with six rebounds per game, and Xavier Shegog scores 13 points with nine rebounds and two assists per game. Senior Dennis Scott III adds 10 points and six rebounds per game.
In the playoffs, Vernon beat Coosa 104-47 in the first round and Oglethorpe County 89-61 in the second round. In the quarterfinals, Vernon beat East Laurens 73-57. Against Mount Pisgah in the semis, Goba led with 23 points and eight rebounds; Shegog added 15 points with nine rebounds, and Garris had 15 points. Scott III added 10 points, and Gabe Alterman had seven assists.
“The young men in our program, over the last 3-4 years, have worked so hard to get to this place,” said head coach Tarrik Mabon. “And the guys who started this program with me seven years ago, this falls on their shoulders.”
Paideia advanced to the title game after missing the playoffs last season and is making the program’s first-ever state championship appearance.
“It’s all about defense,” said Pythons coach Eddie Johnson, who guided Therrell to a 2A state title in 2019. “Defense wins games; offense just puts people in the stands. I don’t give a dang about offense, or who the high scorer is. I care who gets the most rebounds, the most deflections. It has been a hard process getting the boys to ignore your offense and focus on defense, because if you can do your job on defense, your defense will turn into offense. I feel like they’re buying in and just the right time.”
In the playoffs, Paideia beat Chattooga 66-41, Jasper County 56-47, Pelham 69-54 and Savannah 56-39 in the semifinals.
Against Savannah, 6-foot-2 sophomore point guard Cesare Harper scored 17 points, and 5-10 freshman Tristan Mitchell added 14 points.
“This is something we’ve been talking about all year,” Johnson said. “It’s on us to put ourselves on the map. Paideia has always been a school that’s been there this whole time but has never really been known.”
Division II Boys: Greenforest vs. Manchester (Wednesday at 3 p.m.)
Top-ranked Greenforest has been favored all season and after moving past Macon County in the semifinals, the Eagles are riding a 20-game winning streak and are in the hunt for the program’s fifth state championship.
Greenforest won titles in 2013, 2016, 2017 and 2022. The Eagles have won with big leads and weathered scoring runs on the way to the championship game.
In the playoffs, Greenforest beat Chattahoochee County 103-38, Greene County 73-32, McIntosh County Academy 87-62 and Macon County 68-44 in the semifinals. Against Macon County, the Eagles weathered a 12-0 run in the opening moments of the second half that cut its lead to 38-34.
Head coach Rory Griffin called a timeout to try to end that run. And it did. The Eagles allowed 10 points for the rest of the game.
“That was just basketball,” Griffin told the AJC. “We’ve been there before. I know what we tell our guys at half, and I can only imagine what he gave them. Potentially 16 minutes left in the season, in the career. So (Macon County) was supposed to come out like that.”
In the semis, 5-foot-9 senior Michael Robinson finished with 22 points to lead Greenforest, and other scoring threats include 6-foot senior Elijah Lewis and senior power forward Caleb Kawela, who each scored 13 points in the semifinals victory.
On the other side of the Division II boys title game is Manchester.
The team, and the entire community. And sometimes, it takes a village to win a state title. And in a picture-perfect world, it takes an alumni coach who has felt the sting of defeat in the championship game while wearing the jersey of the team he now coaches.
And in his first year, no less.
That’s what Manchester – led by head coach Demonta Prather in his first year – is banking on. Prather played on the Blue Devils team that lost to Laney in the 2012 Class 2A title game, and it still stings.
“And so this means a lot to me. It means a lot,” he said. “It’s a small community, Manchester, and we all support each other. We need to bring the crowd to the championship game. We got to have that crowd.”
In the semifinal victory against Warren County, Manchester’s two leading scorers combined for the game-saving block with 2.1 seconds left to secure the victory for the Blue Devils. Jaedyn Terry finished with 24 points, and Daryus Bryant added 14 points.
“We knew we were up two points and we wanted to force a long shot and not let them get in the paint,” Bryant said of the mentality in the final seconds of the semifinals victory. “It’s just great to make that block, and we know when we get back home everybody is going to be congratulating you and thanking you but, in the end, we got a championship to play for.”
Division I Girls: St. Francis vs. Galloway (Saturday at 11 a.m.)
It’s St. Francis wanting another title and Galloway, last year’s runner-up, standing in the way.
Again.
Top-ranked and defending-champion St. Francis has four state championships, and head coach Aisha Kennedy is responsible for each of them. The Knights won the first championship in 2013, when it captured the Class A Private title. St. Francis won back-to-back titles in 2015 and 2016 -- also in Class A Private.
Last season, the Knights defeated Galloway 76-74 to win the program’s fourth title. In the playoffs this season, the Knights have beaten Dade County 62-21, Commerce 78-38 and East Laurens 75-53 in the quarterfinals. Against Athens Christian in the semifinals, St. Francis had little issues in the 70-38 victory.
Senior Nya Young scored 20 points with six assist and three steals to lead St. Francis, and senior Sa’Mya Wyatt added 13 points with seven rebounds and two steals. Freshman Giaunni Rogers added 11 points with five rebounds and three steals, and junior Desi Wright scored 10 points with four assists.
“We’ve been really good defensively,” Kennedy told the AJC after the semifinal victory. “When we can guard and be aggressive out front, we turn people over and get layups in transition, and that’s one of our strengths. … We’ve been talking a lot about playing as a team and sharing the ball because we do have a lot of good pieces, and today I thought we played really good and to the best of their ability.”
For Galloway’s girls, winning a program-first championship is not easy. And going against the top-ranked defending champions is downright hard. But experience is key for Galloway.
The Scots began the playoff run with a 62-18 victory against Armuchee and beat Elbert County 62-33 in the second round. In the quarterfinals, Galloway defeated Swainsboro 70-61 and in the semis against Rabun County, senior Tianna Thompson was key.
She scored a game-high 28 points to lead the Scots to a 56-45 victory against Rabun; sophomore Taryn Thompson scored 14 points, and freshman Poloma Diaz-Williams added nine points.
“We’ve been working on in-game situations,” head coach Keisha Brown told the AJC. “A bullet point for us is finishing games, because in the 10 of our losses we’ve let four or five go because we couldn’t close it out. We spread them out. We’ve got drivers, shooters and players who can post. It’s not about scoring all the time. They’re understanding clock awareness, and how many shot clocks are in a game clock, and that’s the beauty of it.”
Galloway lost both matchups against St. Francis this season – 71-70 on Jan. 12 and 65-49 in the Region 6 title game.
“To return to the title game means everything because the dynamic of our team has totally changed,” Brown told the AJC. “People that were on our bench last year are starting for us and having to do things they’re not accustomed to, and Tianna, quite honestly, is 40% of our scoring.”
Division II Girls: Greenforest vs. Montgomery County (Wednesday at 1 p.m.)
It’s top-ranked Greenforest trying for its first championship, and Montgomery County enters the game having not won a title since 1972.
Greenforest has been ranked atop the class all season long, and if there’s one advantage it will use in the state title game, it is this: Experience.
The team built a pre-region schedule which included some of the best teams in the state and country. Its losses were to Baldwin 63-34, Alabama’s Sparkman 60-43, Division I finalist St. Francis 57-49, Alabama’s Auburn 64-57 and Campbell 47-31.
Since losing to Campbell, the team has won 14 consecutive games. In the playoffs, Greenforest beat Schley County 59-45, Warren County 71-46, Wilcox County 57-42 and Taylor County 65-34 in the semis. In the semifinals, the Eagles were bigger, faster and took advantage of that throughout the game.
Junior point guard Lana Koricanac led Greenforest with 18 points against Taylor County, and senior guard Ndate Ndiaye added 13 points. Greenforest’s senior center Arek Angui finished with eight points.
Greenforest lost in the 2016 championship game and the program has not advanced past the quarterfinals since. Last year, Greenforest lost to Green County 47-43 in the first round.
It has been 52 years since Montgomery County won a state championship and now the program has a shot at its fourth after moving past defending-champion Clinch County 61-57 in the semifinals.
Last season, Clinch sent the Eagles home in the second round, 57-41.
The Eagles won the program’s first championship in 1961 under head coach Mayes Dobbins and then back-to-back in 1971 and 1972. The team lost in the title game in 1976 under Don Baird but has not been this deep not the playoffs since. Two players are key for the Eagles – seniors Marley Bell and Amire Banks.
“Those two mean everything to this team,” head coach Tryone Madison said of Bell and Banks. “That’s why we are doing kind of what we are doing. Last year, they were playing. But they were not playing as hard as they are now. They are tuned in for the ultimate goal next week.”
Bell, a 5-foot-9 shooting guard, scores 25 points with a team-leading 16 rebounds, three assists and four steals per game. Banks, a 5-3 speedy guard, adds 17 points with a team-leading seven assists, four rebounds and four steals per game. Junior Erin Adams and sophomore Trinity Wideman combine for 12 points per game for the Eagles. The Eagles’ path to the championship went through Charlton County 71-45, Early County 58-43, Christian Heritage 69-54 and Clinch County.
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