Winston Academy girls coach Moe Reed has been looking for more aggressiveness from her eighth grader Hailey Bradford.
Bradford is one of the team’s best 3-point shooters and Reed has impressed on the youngster not to be afraid to shoot it. She did just that in the semifinals of the MAIS 2-AAA tournament at Leake Academy and it doomed the Starkville Academy Lady Volunteers.
In the final seconds of a tied game against the Lady Vols, Bradford caught a ball in the corner and launched a long ball that would ultimately be the game winner. WA held on for the third time this season against the Lady Vols, winning all three by three points.
Bradford had 12 points in the game along with Lilly Sisson and Bailey Wood had a team high 18 as WA would win 44-41.
That pushed them into the title game against the host Lady Rebels and WA saw that Leake would again be too much to handle. Leake won that ball game 60-30 to claim the district title and WA would finish second with 13 points from Wood.
The Lady Pats did enough to push themselves to the No. 2 seed for the North State tournament that started Tuesday, however. Heritage Academy is hosting the event and WA opened it up against Indianola at 4 p.m. A win would pair them with the winner of North Delta School and Heritage Academy in a game to be played on Friday at 5:15. If they can win that ball game, they’ll play a championship round on Saturday at 2:15 p.m.
BOYS
Earlier this season, the WA boys got its first district win in over 10 years when they beat Starkville Academy.
They took another milestone step last week in the 2-AAA tournament.
It was the first district tournament win in that time frame as they met up with the Vols again and they ended SA’s season in a 54-52 first round win.
The Patriots trailed by seven points at the end of the first quarter but chipped away as they were down 28-25 at the break. WA came back to take a 42-35 lead after three quarters and they held on to win to keep the season alive for at least another week.
Blake Peterson had a monster game with 20 points, 13 rebounds, six steals and five blocks. Collin Mills had 12 points in the win.
Winston ran up against one of the best teams in the state and the eventual 2-AAA champions in the semifinals but gave them their best battle in the series yet.
Heritage jumped out to a 13-4 lead in the first quarter before WA battled back and held HA to nine points in the second quarter for a 22-13 deficit at the half. The third quarter was a killer for Winston as they gave up 21 points and trailed 43-21 going to the fourth. Winston outscored Heritage by nine in the final frame but the damage had been done as they fell 52-39.
Freshman Brylee Wall was the leading scorer in the game for WA with 14 points and Peterson had 12 points and six rebounds.
The Patriots couldn’t rebound from that defeat in the consolation game and took a 67-31 loss to Canton as they fell to the four-seed in the division.
Despite the loss, Winston (15-17) had already clinched a berth in the North State tournament that will be held in Columbus beginning on Tuesday. Like the girls, WA will be playing Indianola and that game will take place at 5:15 p.m. against the district champs of 1-AAA.
