Blythewood Girls Take Out Wando To Repeat As 5A Division I Champions
Blythewood’s girls basketball team fell behind early against Wando but overcame that deficit to finish with a 68-44 victory.
By WORTHY EVANS
Contributing Writer
COLUMBIA — Blythewood’s girls basketball team fell behind early against Wando Friday night at Colonial Life Arena.
That deficit didn’t bother the Bengals for long. They quickly overcame an 8-point deficit and used their pressure defense to finish with a 68-44 victory that clinched the team’s second straight 5A Division I state championship.
“It’s definitely surreal. This group deserves it,” third-year Blythewood coach Emily McElveen-Schaeffer said. “They’ve worked hard for four years, These girls and these coaches, trusted the program, trusted the process and they deserve this moment more than anything else.”
South Carolina State signee Chase Thomas led the way for the Bengals with 28 points and 11 rebounds. USC-Beaufort signee India Williams scored 20 points and pulled down 10 boards
“Both of them are very good players. They’ve put their name in the history books of Blythewood High School. They both stepped up at the right moment, as they told me they would. They’ve been here before, and I trust them.”
Two other seniors were key in securing the victory. Hayley Hightower, the veteran point guard and Purdue track and field signee whom McElveen-Schaeffer said has sparked the defensive effort for years, had eight steals and five assists on top of five points. Madison Thomas, Chase’s sister, had two steals and two assists with four points.
After last year’s state title win, the seniors on the team were dead set on winning another before they graduated.
“That was their goal, to go back-to-back,” McElveen-Schaeffer said. “ They decided themselves, we’re tired of losing, we don’t want to lose anymore.”
Makenna Reynolds, who finished the night with 19 points, scored nine points over the first eight minutes to vault Wando to a 17-9 lead.
“We weren’t really aggressive on defense,” McElveen-Schaeffer said. “We get motivation from defense, adrenaline, and it turns into capitalization on offense. We’re small. We don’t have any size, so we have to pressure their play so we can get a return on the offensive end.”
Blythewood’s defense awakened in the second quarter, and stepped up the pressure. From that point on, the Bengals points flowed.
Hightower made three of four free throws and Thomas sank a 3-pointer to get the Bengals to within 17-15 at the 6:36 mark of the second quarter.
The game stayed close up to halftime. Williams broke a 27-27 tie with a 3-pointer with 23 seconds left in the first half to give the Bengals a 30-27 lead at the half.
The Blythewood defensive pressure took a higher level the rest of the way.
The Bengals’ pressure clamped down on Wando. They outscored the Warriors 38-17 and held them to just 7-for-24 in shooting.
Wando opened the third quarter with a Bella McKevitt free-throw and a basket from Reynolds to tie the game at 30, and after Hightower made a basket, Emry Crawford tied the game again at 32.
Blythewood scored seven points in quick succession in the space of a minute. After the 5-minute mark of the third, Williams made one of two foul shots, Thomas drained a 3, and Williams returned to the basket for a 3-point play with 4:04 left.
The Bengals finished the third quarter leading 48-36, and outscored Wando 20-8 in the final eight minutes.
Wando, which rallied against Lexington from a 28-15 halftime deficit to beat the Wildcats 53-52 in the lower state final, had its season end with a loss, but 11th-year head coach Jeff Emory said that his Warriors proved critics wrong all year and finished high.
“Nobody wants to lose the last game, they want to win it and that’s what we prepare for all year,” Emory said. “We’ll be back. We have a young team, but if you call this year a failure, you’re not paying attention. We weren’t ranked at the beginning of the year, nobody ever seems to give us credit at the beginning of the season. Two or three weeks in we beat a ranked team and we kept going and going and going, and from there we stayed in the top 10 all year long. I couldn’t be more proud of them. I think they’ve earned everybody’s respect.”
McElveen-Schaffer impressed to her team that Wando’s ability to play hard and rally illustrate that strong seasons and state championships are earned, not just expected.
“That’s what I challenged them with,” she said. “Wando in their last game came from behind to beat Lexington, and I told them that they could come back. That’s a good basketball team and that we can’t stop. … You’ve got to compete every day. You don’t just walk on the court and beat somebody.”
Three years ago, McElveen-Schaeffer took over a program that went 0-19 in 2021-2022 and had little history of success. With the program that has back-to-back state championships, she said attracting talented players to come to Blythewood will be a stronger sell.
“Winning breeds winning,” she said. “When people see what we’ve done, they’re more eager to come here. They want to be a part of that, they want to see that.”
Wando 17 10 9 8 — 44
Blythewood 9 21 18 20 — 68
Wando
Makenna Reynolds 19, McKevitt 9, Crawford 8, Mazyck 4, Rush 3, Lovis 1.
Blythewood
Chase Thomas 28, India Williams 20, Fulton 8, M. Thomas 4, Hightower 5, Stovall 3.
