WHITE, Ga. – Northwest Whitfield did nearly everything it had to do to win the Region 7-AAAA girls’ basketball championship Wednesday night. Almost everything but not quite enough as River Ridge withstood a furious Lady Bruins’ start to win, 51-45.
Northwest (23-4) will host a first-round playoff game Friday at 6 against Carrollton.
“We didn’t have a good night shooting, but I couldn’t have asked for a better start,” said Northwest coach Greg Brown, whose team led 15-3 after six minutes and out-rebounded the taller Knights 32-20. “I told them if we out-rebounded them we would win, and I was so proud of them for the work they did on the boards, but it didn’t work out that way.”
Northwest still led 21-12 early in the second quarter before the Knights (21-7) found their range. Jessica Baker, Alexis Pepin and Lucy Stone hit consecutive 3-pointers in a two-minute span to tie the game at 21 before 6-foot-2 senior post Jessica Mlaska, saddled with early foul trouble, came back in to score eight points in the final four minutes of the half as River Ridge led, 32-27.
Following a cold-shooting third period by both teams, Northwest scored seven straight, four from Macy Weeks, to tie the game at 39 with 3:50 to play, then used six consecutive Halle Ford points to again tie the score at 45 with 39 seconds to play.