Blythewood girls capture first state crown
By WORTHY EVANS
Contributing Writer
FLORENCE – Around this time three years ago, the Blythewood girls basketball team finished the season 0-19. On Friday night at the Florence Center, the Bengals won the 5A Division I state championship with a 62-59 victory over lower-state champion Summerville.
“Their hard work has definitely paid off,” second-year head coach Emily McElveen-Schaeffer said. “That was what I was most proud of, that they worked hard since June, day in and day out, fall ball, and I’m glad they get to reap the benefit of that.”
Over the past three years India Williams, Chase Thomas, and Hayley Hightower have developed into team leaders, and it showed on the court and in the box score Friday night—Williams led Blythewood (29-2) with 22 points, Thomas had 18 points and 11 rebounds, and Hightower had 11 points.
“It means a lot, this is the first state title in, like ever,” Williams said. “It’s a great opportunity to be a part of this, and in only my third year here, it’s incredible. We started off working very hard, and we were like, this is our season, and we definitely came out and performed to that.”
It was a Williams-Thomas-Hightower show against the Green Wave (24-4) in the first half. The veterans got around Summerville’s 3-2 zone by hitting six 3-pointers in the first half, which was just enough to help the Bengals to a 29-25 halftime lead.
Thomas had just four points in the first half, a free throw and a 3-pointer. Williams had 14 points in the first half, but just one layup to join her four 3-pointers.
“She stepped up big in the first half,” Schaeffer said of Williams. “She had the first six points of the game from that corner. The corner 3, that’s her shot.”
Hightower scored nine points in the first half—a 3-pointer, two foul shots, and two layups.
Hitting baskets from behind the 3-point line has been a trait for all Blythewood players this year, and Friday’s 3-pointers—four from Williams, one from Thomas and one from Hightower, proved to be the difference.
“I play a little team. We have a lot of guards so we rely on that,” Schaeffer said. “We shoot a lot in practice. We knew they would come out in a zone and I told the girls to occupy the guards, get it to the corners and let us shoot the ball.”
While the Green Wave’s zone prevented a lot of easy baskets, Blythewood did just enough in the second half to keep Summerville behind.
“Like I told the girls, basketball is a game of runs,” Schaeffer said. “When teams go on runs you’ve got to be able to control those runs. You can’t let the atmosphere take over, because in this kind of atmosphere here, the crowd’s gonna be involved. I think we did a good job of responding to their runs.”
Aniyah Guerrero sank the first basket of the second half to give the Bengals a 31-25 lead, but Cailah Tucker and Molly Daugherty put up baskets to cut that margin to two.
Williams made good on a jumper and a foul shot, and a jumper from Hightower brought Blythewood’s lead back up to 36-29 at the 4:53 mark of the third quarter. The Bengals outscored Summerville 9-8 the rest of the way to end three quarters of play with a 45-37 lead, even with senior point guard Sharron Waters on the bench in foul trouble.
Without Waters, who’s a consistent 3-point hitter as well as a good ball-handler, the team relied on Thomas in the paint and at the free-throw line, and Daniella Bosmans who had nine points in the game, as the game drew to a close.
“Our team is more than one person,” second-year head coach Emily McElveen-Schaeffer said. “We rely on each other and Chase had to do her role tonight, and in the fourth quarter they went man, and we could open up against what we’re used to playing all year, and that just shows that all five on the court can go.”
Bosmans’ basket early in the fourth gave the Bengals a 47-37 lead, the first double-digit lead of the game.
Thomas, who had a 3-point play in the third quarter, made good on another 3-point play in the fourth quarter that put Blythewood up 57-45 with just over three minutes to go. She scored 11 points—seven from foul shots—in the final quarter to help preserve the win.
Tucker’s 3-pointer with 19 seconds left was the last score of the game, and as Molly Daugherty’s 3-point attempt failed at the buzzer, Blythewood players cleared the bench in celebration of closing out the season with a victory.
Molly Daugherty scored 22 points and Tucker had 18 points to lead Summerville.
“One of the things I felt that hurt us was that we had like 10 days off,” Green Wave head coach Calvin Davis said. “But we gave it our all, we left it all on the floor. It didn’t end the way we wanted it to end, but in the end they grew, and they became special in that sense of being developed.”
Summerville’s five seniors, tucker, Lavassar, Emma and Molly Daugherty, and Madison Thomas, provided a strong foundation for the team over the past three years.
“Three of them will go on to play at the next level, and the other two might,” Davis said. “They’re very special to me. They’ve been with me for at least three to four years. I love them, they grew up as my leaders.”
Blythewood 16 13 16 17 – 62
Summerville 13 12 12 19 – 56
B – India Williams 22, Chase Thomas 18, Hayley Hightower 11, Daniella Bosmans 9, Aniya Guerrero 2.
S – Molly Daugherty 22, Cailah Tucker 18, Jayden Bennett 5, Emma Daugherty 4, Madison Thomas 3, Krissa Lavassar 2, Destinee Grant 2.
