Midlands Feature Stories from Around the Area
Blythewood junior Kaila Spain in tournament's title game.
Midlands Top 10 Boys
1. Ridge View (23-7, 12-0 Region 5-5A)
2. Blythewood (23-6, 9-3 Region 5-5A)
3. Keenan (22-8, 8-0 Region 4-3A)
4. Dutch Fork (20-7, 10-1 Region 4-5A)
5. River Bluff (20-8, 9-2 Region 4-5A)
6. Gray Collegiate (19-8, 12-2 Region 4-4A)
7. Brookland-Cayce (19-9, 11-3 Region 4-4A)
8. C.A. Johnson (19-11, 12-4 Region 2-1A)
9. Hammond (19-6, 8-2 SCISA Region 1-4A)
10. Westwood (18-9, 4-8 Region 5-5A)
11. Fairfield Central (15-7, 10-0 Region 3-2A)
Midlands Top 10 Girls
1. Blythewood (29-2, 11-1 Region 5-5A)
2. Lower Richland (25-2, 12-0 Region 5-4A)
3. Dutch Fork (22-3, 9-1 Region 4-5A)
4. Ridge View (20-9, 10-1 Region 5-5A)
5. Lexington (18-6, 8-2 Region 4-5A)
6. Heathwood Hall (17-4, 10-0 SCISA Region 1-4A)
7. Keenan (16-6, 7-0 Region 4-3A)
8. White Knoll (17-10, 7-3 Region 4-5A)
9. Eau Claire (18-9, 7-3 Region 3-2A)
10. Northside Christian (23-3, 8-2 SCISA Region 1-4A)
11. Westwood (14-15, 6-6 Region 5-5A)
12. Camden (17-7, 9-3 Region 3-3A)
State playoffs, finals dotted with Midlands teams
By WORTHY EVANS
Contributing Writer
Columbia - Several Midlands teams went deep in the state basketball playoffs in late February and early March. Among them, the Lower Richland girls (25-2) fell 42-34 to North Augusta in the 4A lower-state championship game, the Eau Claire girls (18-9) fell 89-36 to Andrew Jackson in the 2A championship game. In SCISA, the defending 4A champion Heathwood Hall girls (17-4), led by Gatorade State Girls Player of the Year Lauren Jacobs, fell 54-52 to First Baptist, and the Hammond boys fell 49-45 to Porter Gaud in 4A lower state championship game.
The big focus on Midlands basketball came in the 5A Division I state championship games March 7. The Blythewood girls beat Summerville to claim their first-ever state title, and in the boys game Ridge View knocked off the Blythewood boys to win its second straight state crown. In the 3A boys state final March 6, Keenan topped Powdersville to win its 10th state championship.
Blythewood girls capture first state crown
Blythewood closed out the season March 7 making history at the Florence Center. The Bengals stayed in front of Summerville for most of the 5A Division I state championship game to secure a 62-56 victory and secure the first girls state basketball title in the history of the school.
“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,” said Williams, who made the 5A All State team with Thomas. “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.”
The road to the state championship was long and hard. The girls program had weathered two winless campaigns, 0-18 in 2018 and 0-19 in 2022. In the latter season, the Bengals roster featured four eighth graders: Thomas and her sister Madison, Williams, and Hightower.
They largely sat on the bench and watched every minute of that futile effort, but returned year after year. The next season the freshmen led the team as the Bengals finished 15-14, above .500 for the first time since 2014. Chase Thomas averaged 16.3 points per game, Williams averaged 13.4 points and Hightower 12.1 points that season.
Head coach Steve Inabinet retired after that season, and his former assistant, Schaeffer, stepped in as head coach for 2023-2024. Schaeffer led Blythewood to a 13-9 finish and the team’s second-straight third place finish in the region.
By that point, the Blythewood girls had an effective offense and defense, but no one among the South Carolina basketball world had Blythewood in the preseason top 10, let alone consider the Bengals a state contender.
Blythewood went to work on the court after a strong off-season. The Bengals won their first nine games before falling to Dutch Fork, and finished the non-region schedule 13-1. Rather than flame out in region action, the Bengals hit the accelerator for Region 5-5A. They breezed past crosstown rival and perennial champion Westwood, as they did the rest of the schedule. Their only loss came to Ridge View in the regular season finale, but the team clinched a share of the region title with the Blazers.
That loss turned out to be a hiccup more than anything else. The Bengals got a first-round bye and won their first playoff game since 2013, cruising past Byrnes 63-49 in the second round. In the vast confines of the Florence Center, Blythewood kept their shooting sharp and stayed ahead of J.L. Mann to capture the team’s first ever upper state championship with a 64-59 win.
One week later at the Florence Center, the Bengals won their first state crown.
“We knew from Day One that we were supposed to be here. We’ve been saying that since the first day of practice,” said Thomas, who averaged 23.4 points and 11.1 rebounds per game this season and is a 3-time Region Player of the Year. “We’ve been playing here (at Blythewood) for about two and a half, three years, so we know the system and we’ve been playing together, working hard, and it’s been finally paying off.”
Ridge View surges past Blythewood for 5A D1 state crown
The Blythewood boys, maybe catching some of the winning the momentum from the girls team, caught fire in the second game of their Region 5-5A slate, and kept getting better—until running into a Ridge View roadblock at the end of the regular season.
The Blazers beat the Bengals in back-to-back games, with the first game that had been rescheduled twice, first because of the Midlands snowstorm Jan. 21, the second when Blythewood wrestling needed the gym to host the upper-state championship against Boiling Springs.
For the visiting Ridge View crowd, that Saturday afternoon was worth the wait. On Feb. 11, the Blazers (23-7) released the tension from the tipoff. Ridge View blasted the Bengals with a 24-7 run in the first quarter, took a 42-23 lead at the half, and finished with a 64-52 victory.
“We knew it would be tough, Blythewood is well-coached. (Bengals) Coach (Zeke) Washington has been doing this a long time,” third-year Blazers head coach Josh Staley said after that game. “We’ve been in a lot of games like this to get sole possession of first place late in the season. We wanted to come out with some intensity, and we wanted to be able to defend (Blythewood top scorer) T.J. Lewis. We were trying our best to make every shot he got tough, and to defend him at a high level.”
That win clinched Ridge View’s region title on a tiebreak. Six days later, the Blazers’ 77-68 win over the Bengals at home left no doubt that Ridge View had the title and all the momentum going into the playoffs.
The Blazers, who had won five state championships since 2018—four under head coach Yerrick Stoneman and the 2024 4A state title under Staley—got a first-round bye and knocked out Carolina Forest, Summerville, and James Island before zeroing in on Blythewood for their third meeting of the season.
At the Florence Center, the result was very much like the two games played in local gyms.
Ridge View fell slightly behind early but powered through with a 71-47 win that secured the 5A Division 1 state championship.
“I’m really happy for the young men because they bought into what we’re doing,” Staley said. “It’s all about experience when you lead young people, you want to give them experiences to help them grow and be better people, and they bought into the process.”
Junior guards Korie Corbett—the 5A State Player of the Year—and 5A All State Yale Davis led the way for the Blazers once again. Corbett scored a game-high 23 points and Davis added 13 points.
“It was really just rebounds and getting to the basket, being down and dirty with everybody so my team can get the win” Corbett said.
“That’s just who he is. He puts the work in, he’s a humble young man who accepts coaching,” Staley said of Corbett. “He does things like he does tonight and we’re not surprised by it.”
Blythewood (23-6) had also received a first-round bye in the playoffs and beat Byrnes and Clover to reach the upper-state championship against Dorman. There, the Bengals rallied from a double-digit deficit in the fourth quarter to win 46-45 on Lewis’ 3-pointer in the closing seconds and a foul shot with 2 seconds left.
Against Ridge View the next week, there was no such good fortune for the Blythewood boys, who earlier witnessed the girls hold their state trophy high.
Lewis, who made the 5A All State team as well, was the only player who scored in double figures for the Bengals (23-6). Lewis had 17 points, while the rest of his teammates scored six points or less.
“It was a really great run,” Washington said. “We rode our seniors as much as we could. T.J. had a phenomenal year and our seniors played hard. We had some young kids that played hard.”
Friday night was Blythewood’s second state championship game. The Bengals fell to Dorman in the 5A state title matchup in 2017.
Washington won state titles with the Fairfield Central boys (3A) in 1998 and with the Chester girls (3A) in 2004.
Keenan takes out Powdersville to regain championship form
Defending 3A state champion Powdersville stayed a few steps behind Keenan, as the Raiders (22-8) closed out the Patriots 58-53 to win the school’s 10th state title and first since back-to-back 3A crowns in 2019-2020.
“I thought I was snakebit because I’m used to getting there,” head coach Zach Norris said. “The last three years losing in the semifinals that really hurt. To go through this and win it, that’s a blessing.
Keenan, along with Great Falls, are the only two basketball programs in the state with 10 state championship wins.
Norris, who started coaching the Raiders in 1999, won eight of those state titles.
Senior center Brian Sumpter, a Wofford signee who stands 6-8 and averages double figures in scoring and rebounds to lead the team, had 10 points. Antonio Caughman Jr. led the team with 17 points and Nyheim McNeil had 15 points.
In the locker room before the game, Norris showed the team a few of his championship rings to the players. “It was on my finger and I just had to get one,” McNeil said.
Sumpter was on the other end of the spectrum.
“I didn’t want to touch it,” he said. “Because I wanted to touch my own, get my own, and we got it.”
