Florence Christian girls basketball team wins first state title in program history
Eagles' Taylor Greene selected as SCISA Region 3-AAA Boys Player of the Year
Florence – The Florence Christian School girls basketball team had just two losses going into the SCISA AAA state championship game on February 28 at Sumter County Civic Center. One of the losses came against its title game opponent, Orangeburg Prep, by a 37-25 count.
That was back on December 12. Things were different this time as the Eagles came away with a 42-35 victory to claim the school’s first girls basketball state title trophy.
“We grew throughout the season,” was head coach Neil Minton’s response to what was the difference over the two months.. “We had more bench players being able to play today and contributing positive minutes.
“We had more people playing with confidence and they were stronger with the ball. All the little stuff we worked on helped us improve and we rely on our defense. I thought we played great halfcourt defense today.”
Junior standout Emerson Poston led the way with 19 points. Junior Bailey Johnson had eight, junior Charlotte Granger had five, senior Leah Lambert had four and senior Anna Kate Huggins had three and senior Demi Greene both had three.
Poston, Huggins, Johnson and Greene were all members of the Region 3-AAA All-Region team. FCS won the region with an 8-0 record.
Poston averaged 11.9 points per game, 6.3 rebounds and 3.9 assists, all team highs. She also had 3.9 steals. Poston was named the region tournament most valuable player and was selected to the AAA All-State Tournament team. She was joined by Huggins on both teams while Lambert was selected to the All-Region Tournament team and Johnson to the All-State Tournament team.
Huggins averaged 7.3 points, 5.8 rebounds, 2.4 assists and a team high 4.2 steals, Johnson averaged 7.7 points, 3.7 rebounds and 3.2 steals, and Greene averaged 4.7 points.
TAYLOR GEENE BOYS PLAYER OF YEAR
Florence Christian’s Taylor Greene was selected as the Region Player of the Year.
Greene had a tremendous season for the Eagles, who reached the semifinals of the AAA state tournament and finished with a 21-5 record. Greene averaged 21.8 points and 3.7 assists, both team highs. He also grabbed 4.9 rebounds and had 2.0 steals.
J oining Greene, a senior, on the All-Region team were sophomore Riley Minton and sophomore Brayden Berry. Minton led FCS in steals with a 2.7 average while scoring at a 10.2 clip to go with 2.3 assists and 2.5 rebounds. Berry led the way in rebounding at 9.3 while averaging 6.5 points.
