By Shannon Fagan, WEIS Sports Director
CENTRE – In recent years, the Cherokee County Lady Warriors have been the young basketball team on the block in the Cherokee County Tournament.
But now they’ve grown into a more experienced one.
That experience paid dividends Saturday evening. The Lady Warriors had four seniors reach double figures in a 52-42 victory over Sand Rock to win the program’s first Cherokee County basketball championship since 2017 and 17th county title overall.
It was also Richard Barton’s first county title as the Lady Warriors’ head coach.
“It’s special,” Barton said. “Several of these girls have been playing significant minutes on varsity since they were ninth graders. We’ve had games where we’ve fought hard, but this feels good to see all the hard work pay off.
“I told them in the locker room we’ve had some growing pains, but it feels good now to have the more experienced team. I’m just proud of them, from where we started to where they’ve grown, where they’ve gotten to this point. It’s fun to watch them play.”
Nevaeh Gaidurgis led the Lady Warriors with 15 points. Deannia Starr and Marie Crane contributed 11 points apiece. Ellisan Givens delivered 10 points as the Lady Warriors won their 15th consecutive game this season.
“It starts with senior leadership,” Barton said. “It’s them knowing their roles, knowing what we expect from them, what they do well, and going out and executing those things.”
The Lady Warriors (22-2) executed things very well in Saturday’s championship game with Sand Rock (14-8).
After leading by just four points at halftime, 25-21, Cherokee County began to stretch out its advantage in the second half. The Lady Warriors led 36-29 after three quarters and built as much as a 17-point cushion in the fourth.
“The second half, our shots started falling, and we were getting some turnovers off of steals out of the press,” Barton said. “We were just being patient and taking good looks. That’s what it comes down to, us limiting our turnovers and taking the right shots. I think they did that.”
Barton said a big key was the Lady Warriors’ rebounding.
“They took pride in that and kept them off the boards,” he said. “The second half we dropped back in our press a little bit. We were patient and waited on them to make mistakes, and we were able to get a lot of turnovers out that led to some points, led to some possessions that we scored off of.”
No Lady Wildcat reached double figures. Macey Pruitt and Maddie Clanton both came close by scoring nine points apiece. Clanton also grabbed six boards. Hadlie Weaver rang for eight points and Molly Grace Lay finished with six points.
“I thought we played hard, but I didn’t think we always played smart,” Sand Rock coach Lisa Bates said. “The effort was there, but we didn’t make some good decisions in the third quarter. That’s when it broke open. They’re a good team and they have lots of weapons.”
As Barton said, winning a county championship is special, but the Lady Warriors have grander designs this season. They’re hungry for more.
“In the locker room, Ellisan said ‘This isn’t our last trophy that we’re going to win. We’ve got area and sub-region coming up. We’ve got other aspirations to look forward to.’
“We’ve got a big week coming up, some big games against some tough teams. We’re going to get challenged down the stretch. We’re looking forward to getting better and growing more and being ready to go when it counts most.”
