CLASS 4A AREA 5 GIRLS FINAL: Griffin's shot at the buzzer gives LAMP first-area tourney title
ACA’s Izzy Warrick and LAMP’s Caitlin Russell battle for a loose ball during the Class 4A Area 5 tournament final on Thursday. (Graham Dunn)
By GRAHAM DUNN
It’s rare when a coach draws up a play for a game-winning shot and it works to perfection.
But what LAMP coach Michael Thornton had devised for the final two seconds of a tie game, worked to perfection.
Serenity Griffin hit a short baseline jumper as the clock expired to give the Lady Golden Tigers a 55-53 victory over homestanding Alabama Christian Academy in the Class 4A, Area 5 tournament championship on Thursday.
“I’ve never hit (a winning shot),” Griffin admitted with a grin. “And what we did, it did work. As soon as I came off the screen I knew I would have a good shot. And I knew it had a good chance to go in.”
The win gave the LAMP girls’ basketball program the first-ever area tournament championship and guaranteed a home game on Monday in the Southeast Sub-regional round against Dallas County.
“They hustled and worked hard all year for moments like this,” Thornton said. “We did a good job of executing at the end of the game, but we really won this game when we played well in the third quarter. We played terrific defense and held them scoreless for large chunks of the quarter.”
The winning shot came after ACA had battled back to tie the game after trailing by 10 points early in the fourth quarter. Eagles’ guard Rachel Rine scored seven of her game-high 26 points in the final period including six straight that cut the LAMP lead to four with just under four minutes to play.
LAMP led by two after Grayson Dickert’s free throw but Jaide Newkirk tied the score with two free throws with 23 seconds remaining.
The teams traded turnovers and a couple of missed shot attempts in the final 20 seconds but the Tigers maintained possession for the final six seconds of the game, leading to the winning bucket.
“We never quit fighting,” ACA coach Augusta Guthrie said. “We came back from a big deficit and gave ourselves a chance to win. You hate to lose like that but I’m really proud of how we fought.”
While this was the second-straight year for LAMP to make the area tournament final (losing to ACA last year), it was the third time for the program to reach the finals.
Thursday’s win was just the ninth overall in area tournament play dating back 22 years of the program. It was just the second time in school history for the girls’ team to win back-to-back games in the postseason. The last time was 2012 when the program won in the sub-regional round and followed with a win in the regional semifinal in Mobile before losing to Montgomery Academy.
Those numbers are music to Thornton’s ears but his team has bigger plans moving forward.
“We are really concerned for the present,” he said. “I want that for them. They’ve dedicated themselves to getting better and they really love each other. They are a tight-knit group. We hope we can keep this going.”
Griffin finished with 14 points and was named the tournament’s MVP. Caitlin Russell led the Tigers with 15 points. Ariana Cannida added 15 points for LAMP, which evened its record at 13-13 for the season.
Along with Rine, ACA (7-14) got 11 points from Campbell Hammett and nine points from Izzy Warrick. The Eagles will travel to Bibb County for the sub-regional round on Monday.