The goal for the McMinn Central girls in Friday’s Times Free Press Best of Preps basketball tournament was to press, press and then press some more.
The Chargerettes’ relentless defensive effort paid off in a 53-36 victory over Lakeview-Fort Oglethorpe that keeps them unbeaten at 11-0 and puts them in today’s championship game at Arts & Sciences.
“I thought it would,” McMinn Central coach Johnny Morgan said. “We watched their game yesterday, and Chattanooga Christian’s pressure gave them some trouble. A team needs at least two, maybe three good ball-handlers, and I didn’t know if they had that.”
University of Tennessee at Chattanooga signee Kylie Lambert scored six of the Chargerettes’ 12 points in the first quarter, while Kennesaw State signee Kayla Weaver and the Lady Warriors struggled to get any offense going. McMinn Central extended its lead to 22-11 at halftime, as LFO managed just four points from the floor in the first two periods.
“I was expecting the pressure, but it was a little better than I thought it would be,” Lady Warriors coach Wayne Weaver said. “That did hurt us. We don’t ever get to see that kind of pressure, and we can’t really simulate it.”
Kayla Weaver opened the third quarter with a 3-pointer and finished with 17 points, including another 3 with 3:18 remaining in the fourth period that got LFO within 10 after it trailed by 19. But McMinn Central responded with a basket from Laura Purkey and held the Lady Warriors (9-2) scoreless the rest of the way.
“We’ve played hard in every game, and we played hard tonight,” Morgan said. “But in some games we haven’t played real smart. This game, we played smart the whole 32 minutes.”
Lambert totaled 19 points for McMinn Central in the semifinal victory, while Purkey and Gabby Jordan contributed nine each. The Chargerettes will face host Arts & Sciences in the championship game today at 5:30 p.m.
“I told them before the game to not get caught up in trying to win the tournament,” Morgan said. “Whatever happens tomorrow, our next seven or eight games are all district games, and we need to focus on getting ourselves better for those games.”
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