Berkeley Advances In AAAAA Div. II Girl’s Basketball With 53-36 Win Over Goose Creek

By Billy G. Baker

Publisher 

Moncks Corner—The Berkeley High girls’ basketball team defeated rival Goose Creek 53-36 Monday night (Feb.,24) to win the Div. II AAAAA Berkeley County Championship with confetti reigning down on the court as the game ended. 

The Lady Stags  will now prepare for the Lower State championship against North Myrtle Beach who defeated Westwood 53-42 to advance on Monday night as well. That game is scheduled for March, 5^th at the Florence Civic Center. 

After the win Berkeley head coach Crystal Peace was excited and emotional at the same time. “My mother passed away a year ago and I just wish she could have been here tonight to share in the celebration,” said Coach Peace at the end of the post-game interview. “We have not played for a Lower State championship since the 2002-03 season. We know we still have unfinished business. This win tonight means a lot to our program.

“I am proud of all of my players, but junior Aiyanna Moses (15 points) is one of our leaders along with sophomore captain Amani McCray (8 points) who hustles all over the court,” said Coach Peace. “Freshman Alaina Carter (13 points) is just a freshman and she is a key player for us as well.”

Several other key players for Berkeley in this gamer were junior forward Madison Thomas who had three points in the game along with sophomore 5-11 captain Imani Levey who is a strong rebounder who had 8 points in the game. Natalie Madison-Ladson is a junior forward captain playing well also. 

Berkeley started the first quarter up-tempo on offense as they built a 14-1 lead with two minutes left in the opening period. Carter and Moses scored six points each in the first quarter that Berkeley led 14-7. 

Goose Creek rallied back in the second period to cut the deficit to 25-19 at the half. Madeline Dates led the Gator’s second quarter rally with a steal and a lay-up, a basket from the  corner, and a deep three to account for seven of her team’s 12 points scored. Celeste Griffin began the quarter with a three-point basket for Goose Creek. 

Berkeley pulled away with a strong third quarter effort as they led 38-28 entering the final quarter.  All five Stag starters contributed points in the third period when they out-scored the Gators 13-9. 

In the final period the Stags out-scored Goose Creek 15-8 for a final score of 53-36. During the game Berkeley scored 14 points off steals that resulted in transition lay-ups. 

Griffin, just a freshman, led Goose Creek with 15 points and Dates, only an 8^th grader, had 12 points.   

“We are a very young basketball team with only two seniors on our roster,” said Goose Creek head coach JabariDeas wrapping up his third season as the head coach. “We made some mistakes that young teams make tonight but we have a very bright future going forward.” 

Note: On Monday night Greenville High advanced to the Div. II AAAAA upper state finals with a 61-55 upset win over top seeded Gaffney. Greenville will now face Greenwood at the Florence Civic Center in the upper state finals after their 59-53 win over Riverside Monday night.