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Concord girls outlast Bulls in semifinal

By Paul Hershey | Independent Tribune

Published: February 18, 2009

INDIAN TRAIL — The Concord and Hickory Ridge basketball teams exchanged wins during the regular season.
In Wednesday night's round three, the two county rivals took turns throwing punches in the middle two quarters and then went back and forth in the final period.
When the battle was over, the top-seeded Spiders emerged with a 75-65 victory in a well-played semifinal of the South Piedmont Conference Tournament.
Concord dominated the third period and then pulled away in game's final minute to advance to Friday night's championship game.
"It was very exciting," Concord head coach Angela Morton said. "I just thought our kids rose to the occasion in the third quarter and played with tremendous heart. That's the team I would expect and I'm glad to see we could do that."
Nyshia Hammonds scored a game-high 26 points while Jatzmin Johnson had 22 points for the Spiders (23-3).
Candra Mathis led Hickory Ridge (17-8) with 20 points, while Ashleigh English scored 17 and Jordan Strode had 15. Junior point guard Akysia Resper, meanwhile, reached the 1,000-point mark for her career.
The fourth-seeded Ragin' Bulls led by eight at halftime, fell behind by 12 in the third quarter and battled back to within two in the fourth before falling short.
"They're a great team and they're clicking on all cylinders," Hickory Ridge head coach Tony Walters said. "We clicked on four except for four or five minutes of the third quarter.
"To be a champion, you've got to beat a champion. I felt that we had them. But the kids played as hard as they could play."
Trailing 55-47, Hickory Ridge chipped away in the fourth quarter, getting baskets from four different players in a 9-2 run to get within 61-59 with 3:30 left.
The Spiders, though, had enough answers down the stretch.
Johnson made a driving layup, Hammonds banked in a short jumper and Jasmine DeBerry hit a short jumper to push the lead back to eight.
"We knew they'd make a run," Morton said of the Bulls. "I told (the kids) at the beginning of the fourth quarter that they've got a lot of heart. They're not going to fall over now so we've got to sustain one more effort. I thought we executed well and looked like a tournament-experierenced team, and that's certainly what you want to see."
Mathis and Strode got consecutive baskets to make it 69-65, but Concord made six free throws in the final minute as Hickory Ridge missed a couple chances for rebounds – including one when it was 69-65 with 43 seconds left.
"If we could've got that and scored I thought it could've been a game for the ages toward the end," Walters said. "But it was a great game. Two very athletic, competitive teams just getting after it."
Concord led by five after the first quarter, but Hickory Ridge controlled the second period. The Bulls hit 10 of 18 shots and used runs of 10-0 and 9-0 to build a 32-24 lead.
Concord used a zone to control Resper, but struggled to defend Mathis and Strode inside.
"I just felt like they had abandoned some defensive fundamentals, and although we were playing zone, we still want to use our man principles," Morton said. "We were just standing around and not aware of who was in our area."
The Spiders, though, picked it up a couple notches in the third, using their full-court press to turn the game around.
Concord forced 10 turnovers in the quarter, converting many of them into easy baskets, including three in a quick stretch that capped a 13-0 run and gave the Spiders a 40-34 lead.
"We knew being down they were going to come out and press us, we just made poor decisions," Walters said. "We've got a bad habit of throwing over the top. We've worked on ball-fake, take two dribbles and pass it and we did not do that."
English hit a 3-pointer for the Bulls, but Concord ran off nine more points, pushing the lead to 49-37. The Spiders went on to score 31 points in the quarter.
"We want to press given certain opportunities and when it works, we kind of just swarm the ball and things get going for us," Morton said. "Once we can get a little momentum pressing, that carries over into our game."
Hickory Ridge finally stemmed the tide late in the quarter before pushing the Spiders to the limit in the final period.
"We left it all on the court," Walters said.
Resper hit the milestone number on the nose with a driving layup in the fourth quarter – the last of her seven points. She joined Hammonds as the only county players to reach the mark as juniors.
"It's a great accomplishment for her," Walters said. "A great player, a great kid on and off the court. What else can you ask for?
"Akysia, Hammonds, a lot of these kids all grew up together, they all played in the same AAU organizations. That speaks volumes."
Concord will face regular-season co-champion Porter Ridge in Friday's 6 p.m. championship. The second-seeded Pirates beat Sun Valley 60-43 in the other semifinal.