MACON - Top-ranked River Ridge outscored No. 2 Hughes 26-5 over the final 11 minutes, including 19-2 in the fourth quarter, to rally from a 16-point third-quarter deficit and won their second state title in three years with a 52-47 victory in the Class 5A girls basketball championship game Friday night at the Macon Coliseum.
River Ridge (31-1) finished the season with a 28-game winning streak and undefeated against Georgia opponents. The Knights’ only loss came against Bradley Central, the top-ranked Tennessee team, in a late November game. River Ridge’s only playoff loss over the past three seasons was an overtime loss to eventual state champion Marist in the semifinals last season.
“It’s just these kids,” River Ridge coach Jason Taylor said. “They’ve got a lot of heart. It’s kinda one of those things where you always feel like they’ve got one of those comebacks in them. They’re not going to quit. They never quit. I was just proud of the effort that they gave and the heart that they showed tonight.”
Hughes, seeking its first state championship, had its 11-game winning streak snapped and finished the season 29-3.
This was the first of two girls championship games this week matching the top two teams in a classification. The other will take place Saturday morning when No. 1 Banks County faces No. 2 Fannin County for the Class A Division I title.
River Ridge trailed 42-26 after two free throws by Hughes’ Taylor Harris with 3:30 to play in the third quarter. A 3-pointer and a free throw by Sophia Pearl and a 3-pointer by Kyla Cantey cut the deficit down to nine points, but three free throws by Karrell Greene gave Hughes a 45-33 lead going into the fourth quarter.
River Ridge then took over, scoring the first 15 points of the final period. Cantey’s three-point play with 1:58 remaining put the Knights ahead 48-45 with 1:58 remaining, River Ridge’s first lead since it was 4-2.
Kylar-Rae Johnson answered with Hughes’ only points of the quarter to cut River Ridge’s lead to one point with 1:01 left, but a layup by Cantey and two free throws by Pearl put the game away.
“We were talking in the fourth quarter about, ‘By the six-minute mark we’ve got to get the score down to this much and by the three-minute mark we needed it to be down to six,’” Taylor said. “I think by the three-minute mark we had it down to two points. So we had some miniature goals set up, and that’s how we played the fourth quarter.”
River Ridge trailed 15-5 after the first quarter but got a big boost off the bench from Joy Tchamabe, who got extended minutes after starter Parker Finley picked up three fouls by early in the second quarter. Tchamabe helped the Knights keep the game within reach by scoring a career-high 13 points, all in the second quarter. She outscored River Ridge’s entire starting lineup, which features five players averaging double figures, in the first half.
The Knights cut three points off Hughes’ lead in the second quarter and went into halftime down 31-24.
“Joy was huge,” Taylor said. “Joy was phenomenal tonight. “When Finley got in foul trouble early, Joy carried us through the second quarter. She played phenomenal.”
Cantey had 12 points for River Ridge, nine of which came in the fourth-quarter rally. Pearl had nine points and five assists, and Kayla Cleaveland had eight points and 11 rebounds.
Cornelia Ellington led Hughes with 12 points, and Greene added 11.
River Ridge - 5-19-9-19 - 52
Hughes - 15-16-14-2 - 47
River Ridge (52): Sophia Pearl 9, Kyla Cantey 12, Makayla Roberson 5, Finley Parker 5, Kayla Cleaveland 8, Whitley Coleman, Joy Tchamabe 13.
Hughes (47): Jocelyn Faison 5, Cornelia Ellington 12, Taylor Harris 4, Savannah Robinson 6, Kylar-Rae Johnson 9, Karrell Greene 11.
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