CLEVELAND, Tenn. — When a basketball program has the foundation Johnny Morgan has achieved at McMinn Central High School, sometimes it doesn’t take much to light a fire under a team.
With Morgan’s top-ranked Chargerettes ahead just 22-21 against rival Polk County in the District 5-AA championship game Tuesday at Cleveland State Community College, the veteran coach gathered his team in the locker room and said three simple words: Just be Chargerettes. McMinn Central opened the second half with a 14-3 run, then held off a furious Polk rally for a 53-48 win.
McMinn Central, 26-1 and winner of 25 games in a row, will host Chattanooga Central on Friday, while Polk County (22-5) will host Howard.
“We really didn’t change anything,” Morgan said after his program’s fifth district title in a row. “I said just be Chargerettes. If we lose being Chargerettes, I can live with that. We just needed to play with some class and dignity.”
Junior post Jenna Adams took the short but sweet speech to heart, scoring 11 of her 13 points during the key third-period surge and displaying a nice all-around game. She started the half with a 3-pointer, drove the lane for a layup, put back a teammate’s miss, then drove and hit a short jumper in the lane.
“Coach Morgan just got us pumped up,” said Adams, who added four blocked shots and five rebounds. “I don’t think we played very good in the first half, and I guess he got us out of our shell at halftime.”
The Chargerettes’ 41-29 lead seemed comfortable entering the final perod, but Alex Rogers and Hollie German had other ideas. The Polk seniors combined for 16 fourth-period points in a rally that cut the lead to one possession.
Still, the McMinn Central lead was nine, 51-42, after a Rogers layup at the 1:23 mark, but a couple of missed one-and-one free throws and two consecutive turnovers led to seven German points in a row. Her 3-pointer with 48 seconds left cut the lead to four, and then Rogers stole the inbounds pass and fed German, whose shot just rolled out as she was fouled.
She made one free throw, but the Chargerettes sealed the win seconds later when Laura Purkey made a layup off a precise fastbreak pass from Madison Lee.
Purkey led the balanced Chargerettes with 14 points, with Lee adding 13. Rogers and German topped Polk County with 18 and 13 points.