Douglass thwarts Taylor County comeback and earns spot in Girls’ Sweet 16 semifinals
It seemed Frederick Douglass had squandered all of its momentum along with a 15-point third quarter lead to Taylor County in Friday’s Clark’s Pump-N-Shop Girls’ Basketball Sweet 16 state tournament quarterfinals in Rupp Arena.
The 5th Region’s Cardinals mounted a frenzied 26-10 second-half rally and took a 51-50 lead on free throws by Riley Sprowles with 3:28 to play.
When Douglass went back up 55-53 moments later on a pair of Jaelee Knowles free throws, Douglass coach Daryl Moberly took a timeout to give his team a last piece of advice.
“I was just talking about just keeping their head in it. There’s plenty of time. There’s plenty of game,” Moberly said. “I said the last two minutes of this quarter, we’re going to try and get some stops, try to get at least two to three stops back-to-back. I said as long as we do that, we’re going to be in good shape.”
Both Reagan Gregonis and Knowles got blocks on Taylor County’s next two possessions and an MK Bennett steal thwarted the third to help Frederick Douglass pull away to a 61-53 win and earn a trip to Saturday’s state semifinals.
“Shout out to Taylor County. They had a great game plan. It was like a hot potato with us with the ball trying to hold onto it,” said Moberly, whose Broncos won despite 27 turnovers that led to 25 Taylor County points.
Gregonis downplayed her stop, saying she just reacted and went up with the shooter along the baseline. Knowles’ block came against Taylor County’s Kennedy Deener moments later. The eighth-grade phenom’s spirited play had sparked Taylor County’s comeback.
“I was just in the moment,” Knowles said. “I had the adrenaline and I saw her go up and I was like, ‘Well, she’s not going to go up on me.’”
For a while it looked like Douglass would win in a rout. Taylor County trailed 41-26 with 2:35 to play in the third quarter.
Douglass shot a blistering 68.8 percent from the field in the first half on the way to a 31-24 lead at the break and remained hot to start the third on a 10-2 run that included six points from Knowles.
“I think we decided that it was time to just leave it all out there,” Taylor County coach Matthew Turner said. “So, we started to press a little bit more. We switched some stuff out when playing defense, and whenever we got steals, it created opportunities for us offensively, and we did a great job getting to the rim.”
Taylor County got two huge momentum plays by Deener, who hit a desperation fling at the rim and got fouled as the horn sounded to end the third quarter and battled for another layup and foul shot on the first play of the fourth. Both sent Taylor County’s boisterous red-clad faithful into a frenzy. Deener scored 10 of her game-high 24 points in the run.
Though Sprowles’ foul shots with 3:28 to play gave Taylor a 51-50 lead, they also came with a long delay due to a clock malfunction. Both teams had to go to their benches for a few minutes while the problem was sorted out.
Turner said he didn’t think the delay sapped much of the Cardinals’ momentum, but Moberly acknowledged he used the extra time to the Broncos’ advantage.
“We needed that rest. My girls were tired,” Moberly said. “ We got to really go over a few things as far as looking ahead.”
Douglass outscored Taylor County 11-2 the rest of the way, including nine free throws down the stretch. Knowles finished with 21 points, 11 rebounds and six blocks. Bennett and Tamia Waide added 15 and 12 points, respectively.
