High School girls Basketball

   Caroline Brannon of Collinsville Alabama facebook post today is she can't believe its been two years since they won the 2a state championship in Alabama. They got it in before the Covid Shut down but I had been knocked in the ditch on my bicycle and was not in Birmingham to see them win Glory.

     The year before they had a battle with Kirby Deboard's Sand Rock HS just seven miles away, four games that one year and it was Hoosiers every encounter. Packed house at both places. Collinsville was upset in a sudden death game and didnt make it to JSU where the regionals took place. I think Sand Rock came in second that year, lost in the finals.

    This year the player of note is McCall King whose great Grandmother is an Agnes Scott grad, a helluva a Rook player and a friend of my sister. McCall plays for Christ Church prep, the Darlington ga prep  of SC and is Miss 2a player of the year.

     I saw her yesterday in the Upstate SC semis played at Bob Jones University. She's as good as advertised, as close to a Larry Bird on the court/slash Danny Ainge, as I have seen in female flesh. She is going to UNC Wilmington next year.

    Last year McCall and her Episcopal preps were taken out by Mikala logan and the Blacksburg Wildcats, across the Broad River from Gaffney. Mikala's Grandfather Duck used to wander up from across the hwy in Gaffney and play backyard football with us. His mother worked at LYnns burger stand where my father helped during rush hour. Duck got good in HS and got a scholarship to SC State.

     I wish Bburg played em again but they got beat in first round.

    Is McCall as good as Kirby Deboard or Collinsville's Tyla Tatum, who is to say. Woulda been great to see these girls play against each other. I think NE Bama coulda held their own but woulda been exciting basketball to see Kirby Deboard's determination match the chess game and near perfect fundamentals of the game of McCall.

    And even better to have seen them in a Round Robin against Hayesville NC HS who were state champs three years in a row mid 80s.

    Best I ever saw was Fyffe Alabama Heather Mayes. Miss Basketball Alabama mid 90s who started varsity in 7th Grade. Susan Booger Weaver called me about the fifth year I lived in Bama and said go stand in the cold at the Safe Way store on the Insterstate. Me and Nah Nah will pick you up there and take you to Fyffe. I'm thinking why do I want to go to Fyffe Alabama near the end of the world, closer to Mississippi in cow land to see a girls HS playoff game. We get there. Place is packed out thirty minutes before the game starts. It gets quiet, game begins and it is pandemonium crackerland where you even think my daughter is not the greatest and its your ass. Then I saw this by then 8th grader throw a Larry Bird pass one handed from under the basket to opposite goal on target and I'm thinking Damn, she's for real.

    PS Its a shame the Gaffney girls of early 70s had to play rover ball half court. Lillian Ashley, Emily MCcraw, Susan Peeler coulda been contenders and near dynasty as Dinal Hamrick, LockHart Harris, Clark Price's Sister Anne and others came along. There was a lot of Drama when they asked for my money, The Coach who had a run with Jr High Girls bucking the old boys system all the way to a state hearing in a football town.

   MCall plays this friday at Noon on WMYA in Aiken. Mikala was supposed to be on the roster for Limestone this year, but a no show. Maybe she will turn up in the fall.