Third-ranked Kell made 11 of 14 free-throw attempts in the final 1:45 of the game after surrendering an 11-point lead and pulled away for a 57-50 victory over No. 4 Hughes in the second round of the Class 6A girls basketball playoffs Friday night at Kell.
Kell, the Region 6 champion, improved to 26-2 and advanced to the quarterfinals for the third consecutive season. The Longhorns will host 10th-ranked Rome on Tuesday or Wednesday. Rome eliminated Region 3 champ Grovetown 60-42 Friday.
Hughes, the Region 4 runner-up behind second-ranked Lovejoy, finished the season 23-7. The Panthers lost to Kell 58-53 in a holiday tournament on Dec. 30. Five of the Panthers’ seven losses came against Lovejoy or Kell.
“Langston Hughes is a great team,” Kell coach Kandra Bailey said. “It was the second time that we played them, and it went down to the wire each time. The girls were excited about playing them because they knew it was going to be a tough game. So to be able to get over that hump and for us to now be in the Elite Eight is big for us. We’ve just got to keep moving forward.”
Kell took its biggest lead of the night at 36-25 on a layup by Crystal Henderson with about two minutes left in the third quarter, and the Longhorns still led by nine at the end of the period.
However, Hughes outscored Kell 11-2 over the first four and a half minutes of the fourth to pull even at 40-40 on two free throws by Raven Thompson with 4:25 remaining in the game. It was still tied after Thompson made two more free throws to make it 46-46 with 1:46.
Henderson was fouled on the inbounds pass and gave Kell the lead for good a second later with two free throws. She was 6-for-6 from the line down the stretch. Amaya Moss went 3-for-4 and Jada Peterson was 2-for-2 from the line in the final 1:24 as Kell put the game away.
Henderson, the Longhorns’ leading scorer and a first-team all-state player the past two seasons, finished with 12 points but struggled to score from the field against a Hughes defense that double- and triple-teamed her, especially in the second half.
Peterson and Jada Green picked up the slack. Peterson finished with a team-leading 19 points, while Green had 15 points, 10 rebounds and two blocked shots. Moss scored seven points and had 13 rebounds and three steals.
“They did a really good job on [Henderson] when they started double-teaming her,” Bailey said. “What I can say is that I’m really proud of my team because we have an element everywhere. Obviously she’s a great player, but we don’t just rely on her. Everybody else did their job, and they stepped up. That’s what I just love about this team.”
Thompson led the Panthers with 20 points, and Kyla Greene added 14.
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