Three South Mississippi basketball teams make the Final Four
The Big House in Jackson will once again have visitors from the Coast.
Three South Mississippi basketball teams reached the Final Four with wins over the weekend in the statewide high school tournaments.
The Harrison Central and Biloxi girls’ teams reached the semifinal round in the 6A bracket, while the Picayune Maroon Tide in the 5A tournament are the lone boys team from the Coast still standing.
Harrison Central and its coach Nancy Ladner are familiar with the Mississippi Coliseum. The Red Rebelettes are making their third consecutive trip to Jackson.
Ladner’s team reached the championship game last year before losing to Meridian. That was with former stars and current Jackson State Tigers Haleigh Breland and Laila Walker leading the way. Harrison Central has had to grow up quickly this season and faced a roller coaster of a schedule.
Following a 14-1 start to the season, HCHS lost 11 games in a row and finished 0-6 in its district. It then beat Gulfport in the region tournament to secure a postseason bid and has won three more in a row, including another win over GHS in the quarterfinal round.
Ladner credits the spark for the turnaround to an eighth grader who was called up before the first win over GHS, star forward Anaisha Carriere’s little sister Jayla.
“I think (the players) got tired of losing, they got frustrated of losing,” Ladner told the Sun Herald. “They said ‘hey, we got to come together and play,’ and that’s what they’ve done... When I pulled (Jayla) up, the very first game that we played good, when we were back in it, was when we played Gulfport and that’s when we pulled her up.
“Now, everybody on the floor has confidence that we have somebody that can handle the ball for us. Now everybody else can kind of take the bricks off their shoulders. If I had to say, the turnaround of our season was that.”
The program will have another run-in with Germantown in the Final Four round. The Mavericks ended the Rebelettes season in the Final Four two years ago and HCHS did the same to Germantown just last season.
Harrison Central dropped a regular season game to the Mavericks in December, but Ladner says her team is playing with more confidence this time around..
If the Rebelettes win the rematch, which will be played Wednesday at 5:30 p.m., it sets up another potential rematch with Biloxi.
The Indians handed HCHS its only loss in its last five games, a 39-29 result in the district championship.
That was the fifth win of what has become a seven-game winning streak for Biloxi as it continues to ride the dominant frontcourt duo of Shaneal Corpuz and Zaniya Johnson.
“We just got a special team,” Biloxi head coach Devin Hill said. “We’re not the most talented team, we don’t have the best shooters, we don’t have the best players, we just have a special group that gets along, that likes each other. Our locker room is intact.”
Biloxi has to face Tupelo Wednesday at 4 p.m. following wins over Northwest Rankin and Meridian. A win from both the Indians and Red Rebelettes would set up an all-Coast championship game.
“We had four really good basketball teams in our district,” Hill said. “We knew one really good team was going to be left at home. Last year it was us... we had to watch that and used it as fuel. We know what we were experiencing this time last year, knowing we felt like we were one of the better teams in the state. It doesn’t shock me at all that two of the four teams in the Final Four are from our region, because our region is stacked full of really good basketball teams.”
Picayune is making its second trip to the Final Four in as many years once again led by backcourt duo Josh Holmes, who scored 15 in each of the first two playoff games, and Troy Carter.
Similar to Ladner’s Rebelettes, the Maroon Tide had to overcome a rough stretch of the season. Picayune opened with a 5-13 record, but has since won 13 of its last 14 games and won its district without a scratch.
Picayune dropped the semifinal game last year to New Hope. It’ll look to extend its stay this time around on Tuesday at 8:30 p.m. against Provine. All games will be played at the Mississippi Coliseum.
