Piedmont girls finish runner-up to Ohatchee in Class 3A, Area 11

By Al Muskewitz, East Alabama Sports Today

OHATCHEE — Things couldn’t have started better for Piedmont in its Class 3A, Area 11 girls tournament championship game Thursday night.

The Lady Bulldogs jumped out to an early lead behind some hot shooting by Ava Pope, but coach Terrace Ridley saw something she didn’t like and called time. It was the time out that changed the game.

As much as it was intended to help Piedmont, Ohatchee used it to settle down. The Lady Indians returned to the floor and went on a 16-point run over the next eight minutes to take control of an eventual 47-39 victory for their first area title since 2008.

The Lady Bulldogs (11-13) will now travel to the winner of Saturday’s Area 9 title game between Saks and Childersburg in the 3A sub-regional round. Ohatchee (19-6) will host the Area 9 runner-up.

Ohatchee’s run coming out of the timeout was actually part of an 18-0 run since the Lady Indians scored a basket right before Ridley called time.

“We’ve been starting out of the gate (fast),” Ridley said. “We knew Ohatchee would come and play us hard and we like that, so we were able to score, but once again we got out of the reason we were able to come out of the gate and get on top. We started trying to create stuff on offense and it hurts us.”

LeLe Ridley ended the drought with 4:28 left in the first half and the Lady Bulldogs made a modest run to close the margin, but the gap was too wide to overcome.

Piedmont put in the press in the fourth quarter that was so effective against Weaver in the area semifinals and got within three with 3:26 to play.

“I’ve got some girls who don’t ever let up,” Terrace Ridley said. “They stay in it, they stay focused and this is a really, really good team to try to press. We thought when we got it in we may be in trouble, but we knew if we just stayed focused and played hard on the press like we did against Weaver we could create some turnovers – and we did do that.”

That’s when Ginn called an important time out. The Lady Indians came back out and held on down the stretch with Tori Vice making free throws and Jorda Crook rebounding the misses.

“We just had some shots that we thought should’ve fell for us that didn’t fall,” Ridley said. “When we got down by three I saw us coming back and getting back on top, but we made a couple errors right here and they capitalized off them and scored.”

Crook led all scorers with 21 points; she also had 13 rebounds. Vice had 13 points.

Ridley led Piedmont with 14 points, 10 rebounds and three assists. Pope finished with 12. Ridley, Pope and Emily Farmer made the all-tournament team.

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