By Angela Watts
Assistant GM, Washington D.C. Metro Area
** Click the links above to access a full photo gallery and dozens of video highlights from Friday’s semifinal action!
** Click HERE to see video highlight’s from only No. 10 Mount Vernon vs. No. 3 Oakton.
** Click HERE to see video highlight’s from only Westfield vs. No. 8 T.C. Williams.
Mount Vernon and T.C. Williams made it perfectly clear they were hoping for a Majors vs. Titans Northern Region championship doubleheader — the first half of which was set to be determined during Friday night’s girls’ semifinal round.
Only, someone forgot to tell unbeaten Oakton that they weren’t invited to the party.
The resilient Cougars rallied from a 19-point deficit midway through the second quarter to defeat the Majors, 47-39, in Friday’s first semifinal game and spoil the chances of only two schools being represented in Monday’s finale.
Oakton’s fans, however, got their wish.
The Cougar faithful started chanting “We want T.C.! We want T.C.!” — and the message did not go unnoticed by the Titans, who also advanced with a 55-44 victory over Westfield in the nightcap.
“They wanted us,” T.C. Williams Coach Cavanaugh Hagen said. “They were pointing and laughing, saying, ‘We want T.C.!’ … so they’ll get us. They’ll get us.
“And we’ll play a hard game and take it to them like we have all season.”
No. 8 T.C. Williams (24-4) and No. 3 Oakton (27-0) will square off at 6 p.m. Monday in the girls’ championship game. Both teams have already secured an automatic berth into next week’s Virginia AAA state tournament.
Oakton did so with a miraculous rally that was sparked by freshman guard Caroline Coyer, who scored 18 of her team-high 22 points in the final two-and-a-half quarters of play. Coyer drained three shots from behind the arc during that stretch, all of which helped chip away at Mount Vernon’s lead.
Still, the Cougars did not take over the lead until after Major standout junior forward Tracy King went down with a right knee injury that coaches fear will be diagnosed as a torn anterior cruciate ligament. King, who scored a team-high 22 points, was carried from the floor by Major Coach Terry Henderson and Cougar Coach Fred Priester with 5:22 remaining and did not return.
Oakton took its first lead of the game at 38-37 on a pair of free throws by Coyer with 3:45 to play and never looked back.
“That was the thing, once Tracey went down we weren’t attacking the basket,” Henderson said. “Jasmine McDonald tried to take over and attack the basket, but she had a couple of shots that didn’t fall and they boxed out real well and seemed to come up with every loose ball. I think the girls got a little frustrated.
“It was a tough one. Tough way to lose a ball game.”
The Cougars were also helped by solid free throw shooting. Coyer connected on 9-or-10 foul shots — all during the fourth quarter — while her twin sister, Katherine Coyer, fared a perfect 4-for-4 from the line.
“Nothing to it,” Priester teased. “No, I couldn’t have dreamed that we would shot that poorly at the beginning. We’ve been scoring a lot of points all season long but we’ve been getting a little tighter here in these last few games.
“I thought, ‘We’ll get past the jitters early and they’ll start dropping’ … but they just didn’t. I don’t know, I think we were nervous. We were real nervous.
“I told them when it was 21-2 and we called time out I said, ‘Look, we just have to get it back to 10.’ Then I told them at half time we just have to get it back to five, and it was six at the end of the third quarter. It just seemed like it was a momentum thing. The kids didn’t give up.”
T.C. Williams trailed by a much smaller, 15-11 margin early in the second quarter, but the Titans turned that into a 20-17 lead with 5:08 left in the first half on a nice feed from senior guard Khalia Boston to senior forward Charnelle Huggins and never trailed again.
Westfield, which was paced by junior guard Shelby Romine’s team-high 14 points, just had no answer inside for T.C. Williams star Tierra Ruffin-Pratt. Ruffin-Pratt, despite missing a handful of layups, still finished with a game-high 26 points and double-digit blocks.
“I said with two-and-a-half minutes left, I said, ‘Take us to states,'” Hagen said of a quick conversation with Ruffin-Pratt, the Northern Region Player of the Year. “And right after that she got that steal and the layup and just kind of picked it up. And when she picks it up, the whole team does. They feed off of her.”
Despite a remarkable high school career, the North Carolina-bound Ruffin-Pratt has yet to win a Northern Region championship. The Titans, who have won 20 consecutive games, were unbeaten during the regular-season in 2007-08 but were knocked out of the Northern Region tournament in the first round after Ruffin-Pratt was sidelined with a separated shoudler.
“For four years we’ve been working,” she said. “And I’ve made it to the championship game and made it to regionals every year. But I haven’t won it yet. So it would mean a lot.”
Email: awatts@digitalsports.com
GAME 1
No. 10 Mount Vernon 12 14 7 6 — 39
No. 3 Oakton 2 12 13 20 — 47
Mount Vernon — King 7 7-8 22; McDonald 4 0-0 8; Venable 2 1-2 6; Mathes 1 0-0 3. Team totals: 14 8-10 39. Oakton — C. Coyer 5 9-10 22; K. Coyer 2 4-4 9; Stephenson 3 1-2 8; Johnson 2 2-2 6; Borojeni 0 2-4 2; McGartland 0 0-2 0. Team totals: 12 18-24 47. Three-pointers — Mount Vernon 3 (King, Mathes, Venable); Oakton 5 (C. Coyer 3, K. Coyer, Stephenson).
GAME 2
Westfield 13 10 7 14 — 44
No. 8 T.C. Williams 11 19 7 18 — 55
Westfield — Romine 5 4-5 14; Barondess 5 0-5 10; Andre 3 2-2 8; Richardson 3 0-0 7; Leon 1 1-2 3; Knox 1 0-2 2; McNamara 0 0-2 0. Team totals: 18 7-18 44. T.C. Williams– Ruffin-Pratt 10 6-6 26; Fikes 2 3-3 8; Norman 3 2-2 8; Boston 3 1-2 7; Huggins 1 4-6 6. Team totals: 19 16-19 55. Three-pointers — Westfield 1 (Richardson); T.C. Williams 1 (Fikes).
ALL-NORTHERN REGION TEAM
Player of the Year: Tierra Ruffin-Pratt, Sr., T.C. Williams
Coach of the Year: Fred Priester, Oakton
First Team
Simone Antwi, Soph., South County; Lauren Burford, Jr., Fairfax; Myisha Goodwin, Jr., Edison; Tracey King, Jr., Mount Vernon; Sam Landers, Sr., West Springfield, Kelcyn Manurs, Sr., South Lakes; Erin McGartland, Sr., Oakton; Sam Partonen, Jr., Robinson; Shelby Romine, Jr., Westfield.
Second Team
LaNia Charity, Sr., Yorktown; Melissa Gallo, Jr., W.T. Woodson; Phylliss Martin, Jr., Herndon; Priscilla Moseh, Sr., Lee; Jalinda Venable, Jr., Mount Vernon.
Third Team
Khaliah Boston, Sr., T.C. Williams; Audrey Dotson, Soph., Langley; Danielle Landry, Sr., Madison; April Robinson, Fr., West Springfield; Shante Waller, Jr., Washington-Lee.
Honorable Mention
Janae Jackson, Sr., Mount Vernon; Erin Kavanaugh, Jr., Madison; Zora Stephenson, Soph., Oakton; Rachel Warrick, Sr., Langley.
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