With three players out for the season because of injuries and another starter missing with an illness, the Albemarle girls went into its Conference 16 semifinal with Halifax with an awfully different starting five and shorter bench than what it had the majority of the season. With their season the line, the Patriots adjusted, fought off an early Comets push, and put together a big second quarter to take the lead for good in a 40-36 victory.
“I’m glad we held on to that lead because we’re not a team that’s taken a whole lot of big leads early,” said Albemarle coach Rachel Proudfoot. ‘We’ve only done that twice this year, usually we’ve made things challenging for ourselves.”
With things knotted up at 11-11 after the first quarter, the Patriots defense put together a 4:47 scoreless effort to start the second while Aiyanah Tyler-Cooper, the lone senior starter now playing in a point-forward role, spearheaded the attack offensively. Albemarle outscored Halifax 11-3 in the second to head into the break up 22-14.
“We found our groove and realized we could push the ball on (Halifax),” Tyler-Cooper said. “We stuck to our game, pushed the ball up court, finished easy layups and made backdoor passes.”
The Patriots came out hot in the third too in with Quinn Graves and Makinna Winterton rebounding and finishing in the paint and Kayla Mann knocking down a 3-pointer to make it 29-14.
“The underclassmen are stepping up and getting this team to where we want to be,” Tyler-Cooper said. “We like to call Quinn our ‘night shifter’ because she does all these things that nobody realizes. And Makinna stepped up to play some point guard tonight, helped us push the ball, find open players and finish her open shots.”
However, the Comets responded with a 7-1 run to make it an 8-point contest late in the third. From there, it was a back-and-forth affair with Halifax pushing to get to within as close as six points, but Albemarle getting to the free throw line to keep its distance. With the game at 37-31 with 26 seconds left, Tyler-Cooper buried a pair of foul shots to put the game out of reach at 39-31. The Comets added a pair of buckets at the end, including a 3-pointer at the buzzer, but it was all for naught.
On the night, Tyler-Cooper finished with 11 points to lead the way offensively. Mann and Winterton both finished with seven points. Graves chipped in five. Eight of the nine Patriots that stepped on the court had at least two points or more.
“We’ve overemphasized that everyone on this team has to be a scorer now,” Proudfoot said. “Everyone has to actually mentally think like a scorer. So we’ve worked on that a lot this week.”
And now the Patriots are guaranteed another week. The win secured a Region 5A North bid. After missing out last year, Albemarle is back into the second week of the postseason for the third time in four years. But before the Patriots get there, they’ll have a chance to bolster their position with a road win over Atlee in the Conference 16 championship on Friday. The two played in the first game of the season back on November 28 with the Raiders edging the Patriots 47-40.
