Olivia McGhee has definitely been locked in before.
But in the second half right after Sylvie Jackson briefly went out with a minor injury late in Wednesday afternoon’s Region 4B championship game against Monacan, something immediately changed.
The Lions’ sophomore star, quite simply, found another gear.
“She just flips a switch and it’s just so hard to stop her,” said Louisa senior Alexis Chapman.
McGhee poured in 16 points in the fourth quarter to finish with 35 for the game and vault the Lions to a 73-64 victory over the Chiefs. With the victory, Louisa secured the Region 4B championship, a berth in the state final four and the program’s first region title in 25 years.
“Everybody had to step up and I had to take over,” McGhee said. “That’s what I had to do — take over.”
McGhee played like a woman possessed down the stretch, flashing an array of drives and finishes, jumpers and a 3-pointer that was followed by what can only be described as a roar from the sophomore guard herself that served as an announcement that she was in charge of the game.
“She’s been talking about how this is the year, let’s go get a ring,” said Louisa coach Nick Schreck. “When Sylvie got banged up, I said ‘O you’ve got to go get the ball’ and she did. You’re not going to find many girls in high school, if any, who can stay in front of her for four quarters.”
Jackson — who finished with 18 points — faced the challenge of marking Jordan Hodges when the Lions switched to man-to-man in the second half. A night after the Louisa press suffocated Patrick Henry, Schreck called it off just a few minutes into the clash with Monacan and played zone the rest of the first half.
The adjustments worked well, with Louisa bouncing back from a slow second quarter to rip off a 17-5 run to start the third quarter that included a hard-fought and-one finish by Jackson that instantly brought the Louisa bench to its feet.
“It was a real close game and that put us ahead a few points and we all just got hyped after that,” Jackson said. “It was a great moment.”
Monacan responded after a timeout though and took a one-point lead into the fourth thanks to Hodges, who buried a 3-pointer to beat the buzzer. Jackson managed to hold her to just six points in the second half though (with just one point in the fourth) and that ratcheted up defense set the stage for McGhee to play one of the finest six minute stretches of girls basketball to oust a Monacan program that was the co-state champion a year ago and won four state titles in the last six seasons.
“We hadn’t faced anybody like that this year — they’re constantly up in your face,” Schreck said. “The girls came out in the second half, we executed and our defense propelled us to the win. Sometimes when a team wants to get up and down like that you have to slow them down.”
To advance to the state final four and do it against a powerhouse like Monacan was a fitting moment for a group of Louisa seniors in particular. Chapman, Lydia Wilson, Taylor Fifer are part of a six-player senior class that joined a program that won just four games their freshman campaign, seven their sophomore year and then saw their junior campaigns upended early with a loss to Hanover in the first round of the playoffs. Now that group will finish their career in the state tournament and with a region title to their name.
“Back when we first started playing we didn’t have a lot of veterans on the team so we had to fight through a lot of losses — we never would have thought that we’d win a region championship but here we are and it feels so good,” said Chapman, who notched 10 points. “We’ve still got to keep going, we can’t be satisfied with where we are. We’re not done yet.”
Not done yet. Not with a state semifinal in six days where the Lions will get a shot at something that’s never been done at Louisa — win a girls basketball state title.
