For one final time this season the North Greene girls defended their home court on Saturday night. They used what may have been their defensive effort of the of the season to shut down Midway in the Class 1A State Sectionals on the way to earning a 39-24 win.
“I don’t know, some people might call this and ugly game, but I think it was two teams that were well prepared,” North Greene coach James Buchanan said. “We tried to take away what they like to do, and I think we did a good job of that. We finally settled in in the third quarter, and when we made a couple of shots we gained some confidence. We did a tremendous job on defense all night. My hat is off to these girls. It was great effort, and great concentration. We’re glad we get to play another one.”
With the victory North Greene advances to the Class 1A State Tournament for the sixth consecutive season. The Lady Huskies will begin state tournament play in Murfreesboro on Wednesday at 2:15 p.m. central time against Greenfield. Greenfield beat University School of Memphis 67-46 on Saturday. Greenfield ended North Greene’s season a year ago in the first round of the state tournament.
“I think we all really wanted this win tonight, and we’re really excited to be going back to state. Six years in a row, and four years in a row for us seniors, we’re just really happy right now,” North Greene senior Mercy Buchanan said.
In the first half both defenses knew exactly how they wanted to play their opponent, and getting an open look nearly a Herculean effort from both offenses. That was to be expected after the two teams played out a 33-31 defensive struggle in the same game a season ago, but Saturday’s contest was even more of a defensive struggle.
The Lady Huskies opened the game in a 2-3 zone, hoping to cut off the Lady Green Wave’s drivers. They switched to man for brief stretches, tried to use some full court pressure, and changed the shape of the zone at times. Whatever they tried worked and Midway had to not only earn every bucket, but every shot attempt.
“It came down to rebounding,” Buchanan said. “I felt like our defense was good enough to get stops, but we had to finish the possessions. We did a great job on the boards and hardly gave up any offensive rebounds. That gave us confidence in our half-court defense. Rebounding is just a want-to thing, they had the desire to go get the ball. My hat is off to all of them for that, we couldn’t have done it without a total team effort.”
For Midway the game plan was to play in front of Hannah Miller in the post and bring a second defender when North Greene looked her way. They did not want North Greene to be able to play through their senior center, and especially in the first half the strategy forced a multitude of turnovers.
“We were trying to figure out how to feed the post,” Buchanan said. “This year a lot of teams have played behind Hannah and sent a second body. This team tried to front her with a really long defender, and they did a really god job with it. We couldn’t lob those passes in to her and it led to a lot of turnovers. But at the half we challenged Hannah to carve out some space and she got loose a few times for some easy baskets in the third quarter.”
Miller scored the Lady Huskies’ first four points of the night, but it took almost three minutes for any shot to make it through the nylon. Midway was able to close the first quarter with a 5-4 lead after Kyleigh Cawood slashed to the basket for a layup.
North Greene’s defense got even stingier in the second period and only allowed two points. It came in transition when Cawood took a steal the other way.
North Greene’s offense still struggled to score, but they got a needed boost from freshman Josie Graham off the bench. First Graham delivered a high-low feed to Miller on the block for a lay in. That put North Greene in front 6-5 33 seconds into the second quarter and the Lady Huskies led the rest of the night.
Graham also scored in transition after she received a half-court heave from Mercy Buchanan. Cadie McDevitt sent North Greene to halftime with a 10-7 lead after she put back her own miss.
The third quarter was not played at any sort of blistering pace, but both teams more than doubled their first-half point totals. North Greene got started with Miller finding Kaydence Marshall cutting down the baseline. Ella Head followed that with a three-pointer for the Lady Huskies.
Midway closed the gap to 17-15 with 4:32 left in the period when Cawood made a jumper in the paint through contact and turned it into three points.
The Lady Green Wave never got any closer as Miller followed with six points in the paint and Graham scored on put back. The Lady Huskies took a 25-20 lead into the fourth quarter.
Noth Greene tightened up its defense even more in the fourth quarter and shut down any hopes Midway had of a comeback. It took Midway almost six minutes to score in the final frame and by that point North Greene held an insurmountable 32-22 lead.
Midway was forced to send the Lady Huskies to foul line late and in the fourth quarter they went 10-of-14 at the charity stripe to secure the 39-24 win. A year ago the matchup with the Lady Wave went down to the wire, but on Saturday coach Buchanan got to take seniors Miller, Marshall, Mercy Buchanan and Loren Blevins off the floor with just under a minute left to a raucous ovation from the home crowd.
“Since my freshman year we haven’t had a sectional game like this, they have been one or two point games that came down to the last play. For us to be able to come off the floor together for the last time was really special. We’re like sisters and that meant a lot,” Miller said.
Miller led North Greene on Saturday with 14 points, while Cawood scored 14 points for Midway.
