Lady Bucs denied chance to repeat
HANCEVILLE — The Hoover High School girls basketball team will not get a chance to repeat as Class 7A state champions, after a defeat by a tough — and familiar — opponent.
Sparkman avenged an earlier loss to the Bucs played on the same floor at Wallace State Community College, coming from behind to take a 55-54 victory Tuesday in the Northwest Regional final.
Hoover started strong, going on a 14-2 run in the latter part of the first quarter, and seemed poised to run away with the contest. But the Senators knew that scenario all too well, as it was similar to their January loss to the Bucs by five points.
Steadily, Sparkman began to chew away at the deficit, closing the gap to five points at intermission. And by the midway mark of the third quarter, a Derinenne Black floater in the lane tied the game at 30-30. Two minutes later the Senators took the lead on a pair of free throws, and they held a one-point advantage at the end of the period.
The Bucs took the lead back again in the fourth and were ahead by as many as six points midway through the period, but Sparkman again closed the gap late and took the lead back for good when Hoover was forced to foul them. Black’s free throw in the last 10 seconds pushed the Senators lead to four points and proved to be the clincher, as the Bucs’ Joyia Maddox sank a long 3-pointer at the buzzer.
“It was a hard-fought game. Sparkman never stopped fighting,” Lady Bucs coach Krystle Johnson said afterward. “They never gave up through adversity — people got injured or had foul trouble, they just kept playing hard.”
The play was reminiscent of the first meeting between the teams, as players and coaches from both sides remarked. “I think that game maybe gave them the confidence to come into this one and know they could beat us,” Johnson said. “That game was back-and-forth as well…It was a mirror image of this game, except this time we came up short.”
Many of the Bucs’ problems in the second half stemmed from ice-cold shooting from the field — just 9-of-24 (26.5 percent) in the second half, and just under 30 percent for the game.
“To me it looked like we were looking for someone to bail us out,” Johnson said. “They kept looking for someone to foul them and send them to the line. I kept telling them you can’t play like that — your goal should be to make a lay-up and not shoot free throws…I think that’s why we missed a lot of lay-ups.”
Maddox and Eboni Williams lad Hoover with 12 points each, with Williams also grabbing 10 rebounds. Four Senators players scored in double figures, led by Black’s 17 points.
Sparkman moves on to the AHSAA State Finals in Birmingham. Hoover finishes the season with a 30-2 record.