By Craig Brown

The Lady Bishops of Bishop England edged the Lady Wildcats of Dillon High School 51-49 to take the class 2A girls lower state title on Saturday, February 28, at the Florence Civic Center.

The win sends the Lady Bishops to Columbia to play Pendleton High School for the state title on Saturday.

The Bishops jumped out to an early 10-0 lead over the Wildcats. The Lady Cats are known for their physical style of play and never give up attitude and recovered to finish the first period tied at 10-10. The Lady Cats know how to apply pressure and the Lady Bishops got a good taste of it in the second period as the Wildcats took a 22-20 lead into the halftime break.

At this point in the game the large turnout of fans believed that the team holding the ball when the buzzer sounded at the end of the fourth period would likely be the winner. The Dillon fans as usual seemed to have a two to one margin turnout in support for their team. The Lady Bishops had a definite height advantage over the Lady Cats but the Wildcats were better physically conditioned and far more aggressive.

When play resumed in the third period the action intensified with both sides giving it their all. The hard fought period ended with the Lady Bishops holding onto a 38-35 lead.

The Lady Cats battled back and had a 47-43 lead with just over four minutes left in the game. The old saying that the ball bounced the wrong way often has a lot of truth in it as the rebounds seemed to fall into the hands of the Lady Bishops at this point in the game, adding a 6-1 scoring margin over the Cats for a 49-48 Bishops lead.

Bishops coach Paul Runey knew his team could not afford to let the Wildcats get the ball back and the Bishops held the ball and passed trying to use the clock’s final minute and a half. The Bishops took advantage of their height passing over the Lady Cats heads. Coach Runey also called two timeouts in the closing seconds to give his team a needed rest over the powerful Lady Cats.

Wildcat coach Shawn Johnson was not pleased with what he felt at times were violations of three second zone rules and spent much of the last minute of the game on the court protesting this and what he believed were other infractions going unnoticed by the officials.

The Bishops final two points came from the free throw line due to Dillon being forced to commit a foul in order to get the ball back. The Lady Cats got the ball back with nine seconds left but the Lady Bishops got a game saving take-away to secure the win.

The old saying that it was such an exciting game that it was a shame somebody had to lose might well describe this game if it wasn’t for the fact the team that did eventually lose was the team I was pulling for. Coach Shawn Johnson and his staff put together an outstanding team this year. In the final game they fell not necessarily to the better team but more as victims of how the ball bounced.

Da’Kerhia Samuel led the Lady Wildcats with 11 points. Kendra McLeod added 9 points; Adriana McCollum, 8; Tejah Breeden, 7; Khamele Manning, 6; Shimya Sowells, 5; and Shar’Asia Samuel, 2.

For the Lady Bishops, Rhetta Moore scored 13 points and Hannah Corbett earned 12. Christine Egede added 11 points; Jo Jo Tompkins, 6; Caroline McQueeney, 5; and Anna Marie Corder and Anna Marie Penninger each added two. Penninger’s points put the Bishops up 49-48.

The Wildcats finished the season with a 24-4 record while Bishop England improved to 22-4.

Click here to see more photos from the lower state championship, or click here to see videos from the game!

Photos by Craig Brown. Click the images below to view at full size!