It was not a game for the faint of heart when the Bryan County and Metter girls met in the Region 3A-DII championship game last Friday night at Metter.
With bodies hitting the floor and every loose ball contested Metter held on down the stretch to slip past Bryan County, 64-57, to win its first region title under former Redskins assistant coach Cassandra Cole-Donaldson.
Donaldson spent 11 years as an assistant to Coach Mario Mincey before going to Metter where she coached the middle school team for three years before moving up to the high school job four years ago.
“They’re a senior-laden team,” Mincey said. “She played them as freshmen because she had coached them in middle school. I told her that when they were juniors, they would win the region. They got upset in the semis last year. It was their time.”
Metter went 7-17 in Donaldson’s first year but the Tigers are 53-15 since as she has modeled her program after the lessons learned under Mincey.
“Both teams laid it all on the line,” Mincey said. “There were a lot of tears in our locker room but I feel good going into the first round of the state playoffs. The last couple of games we’ve had some tough battles and I think that carries over a lot for us.”
Bryan County (22-5) will host Georgia Military (12-12) in an opening round game on Tuesday night. The winner will move on to face the winner of the No. 1 seed Brooks County (18-9) vs. Marion County (11-14) game.
The Redskins were playing in an unprecedented fourth straight region championship game—they beat Metter two years ago for the title—after beating Screven County, 57-54, in a hard-fought semifinal game on Thursday night.
In beating the Gamecocks, the Redskins got excellent games from Jasmine Mikell and Layla Mincey to reach the championship and the duo nearly carried the Redskins past Metter despite Mincey missing several minutes due to injury.
Twice Mincey hit the floor hard in the first half banging her head both times. She missed the final two minutes of the first half and the first six minutes of the second half before Coach Mincey, who is also her father, determined it was safe to play her.
Mikell scored 25 points in the win over Screven while Mincey had 10 points and 10 rebounds. Laney Sehr had 11 points against the Gamecocks.
Against Metter it was another Mikell show as she put her team on her back and nearly carried it to victory.
Bryan County was up 19-18 after a free throw by Mincey with 7:02 left in the half when the Tigers went on a 10-0 run for a 28-19 lead that looked insurmountable.
Trailing 32-26 at the half and with Mincey’s status looking doubtful Mikell literally took over the game in the third quarter.
Mikell scored 25 points on the night with 16 of them coming in the third quarter as she was virtually unstoppable.
When Mincey, who had 16 points despite missing roughly eight minutes, got back in the game the Redskins trailed 44-37. With Mikell outscoring the Tigers 9-2 to close out the quarter Bryan County trailed 48-46 at the outset of the fourth quarter.
Metter led 52-50 when it scored six straight points and that proved to be too much to overcome although the Redskins refused to go away.
Mincey broke the drought with a basket and Liz Harvey hit on three free throws to cut the deficit to three. When Mincey hit a pair of free throws with 49 seconds left it was still a three-point game at 60-57 game.
However, the Tigers’ Zion Saffore broke loose for a breakaway basket against the press and Za’Kyah Byrd got a meaningless layup with three seconds left to set the
BRYAN COUNTY 16 10 20 11 -- 57
METTER 16 16 16 16 -- 64
BRYAN COUNTY (57): Jasmine Mikell 25, Crawford 3 Sehr 4, Buster 4, Harvey 6, Mincey 16. 3-pointers: Sehr, Mincey. FTs: 23-37.
METTER (64): Za’Kyah Byrd 12, Zacarea Walker 14, K. Johnson 9, Zion Saffore 18, M. Johnson 4, Holt 7. 3-pointers: Saffore 2, Keymara Johnson 3, Madisyn Johnson 1, Alyria Holt 1. FTs: 5-8.