Adrienne Darden and the Miller girls basketball team were both running out of time.
Darden, the team’s Delaware-bound senior center, was held scoreless in the first half and the No. 1-seeded Mavericks were only up a bucket against a scrappy Atlantic Shores squad in the VISAA Division 2 semifinal.
The Mavericks’ coaching staff let Darden know that the time was now.
“I really thought about that and I was just like ‘he’s right, I need to go out there and give it my all’,” Darden said.
Darden promptly went on a tear, scoring 23 of Miller’s 27 second half points as the Mavericks beat Atlantic Shored 46-39 to secure a spot in the state title game Saturday at 3 p.m.
“We got into her pretty good and we just said look ‘it’s your senior year, go play hard’,” said Miller coach James Braxton. “She started on the first possession, she got two offensive rebounds, got a foul and then she starts to roll.”
Darden was unstoppable on the block in the second half, flashing a quick release and catching passes at any angle that point guard Lexi Mallory or other teammates could find her from. That hadn’t been the case in the first half Micah Maloney and Mallory had to handle the scoring load. Mallory finished with 11 points, all at the free throw line on 11-for-13 from the stripe while Maloney had seven points, six of them in the first quarter.
“We talked about taking care of possessions — we threw it away a few times just trying to do too much,” Braxton said. “We talked about taking care of the ball.”
Chaniqwa Gilliam led Atlantic Shores’ upset bid with 16 points including a quartet of 3-pointers while Carli Harden had nine points. But without an answer for Darden when she’s at her best — an answer few teams have — Shores came apart down the stretch.
The Mavericks will play Nansemond Suffolk Academy in the title game Saturday after NSA beat Norfolk Christian 64-48 Friday night.
