ROSE HILL — The East Bladen girls’ basketball team knew it had to contain Lakewood’s Areona McKoy in order to win the Carolina Conference tournament championship.
The Eagles couldn’t.
McKoy had 31 points and 15 rebounds Friday night in leading the Leopards to a 45-40 win against East Bladen in the title game played at Union High School.
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East Bladen (19-7) used a box-and-one defense against McKoy in the first half with Ellen Battle and Julia Flowers following her. In spite of the extra attention, McKoy scored 14 points with several coming off offensive rebounds. The Eagles played their standard zone defense in the second half.
“(Lakewood) put (McKoy) where she could get rebounds and go back up,” East Bladen coach Patty Evers said. “That’s where she scored. Why box(-and-one) somebody if they’re scoring all the points?”
McKoy scored 29 points against East Bladen on Feb. 10 in a 64-37 victory. East Bladen won the first meeting between the teams 44-28.
McKoy scored 10 points in the second quarter Friday in helping Lakewood (18-7) take a 23-14 lead.
McKoy’s short jumper with just over two minutes remaining in the third quarter put the Leopards up 32-19. East Bladen used a free from Sana’a Singletary and a pair of baskets by Aaliyah Monroe to end the quarter trailing 32-24.
After Ariel Cromartie made a 3-point field goal to open the fourth quarter that pulled East Bladen within 32-27, Lakewood scored eight straight, capped by Takiyah Carr’s 3-pointer that made it 40-27 with 6:41 remaining.
The Eagles pulled with 44-38 when Monroe stole the ball and scored on a layup with 1:43 remaining, but Lakewood was able to hold off East Bladen’s attempted rally.
“We did not box out, didn’t rebound very well in the first half and couldn’t put the ball in the basket,” Evers said. “The entire game we missed several free throws (4-of-12) that would have kept the score closer. I think we took plays off and you can’t take plays off. You’ve got to play for 32 minutes and we didn’t.
“I thought we did well with the press towards the end there, but we just made poor decisions and were just so sporadic.
“We have a good group of girls. We don’t have problems out of them. I’m happy they were runner-up,” Evers said.
East Bladen beat Union 68-30 and top-seeded East Columbus 46-44 to reach Friday’s championship game. Lakewood defeated Hobbton by forfeit and North Duplin 67-50 in earlier tournament play.
Both teams will await Saturday’s expected release of the N.C. High School Athletic Association’s 3A playoff pairings.
EAST BLADEN (40) — Aaliyah Monroe 13, Ellen Battle 4, Ariel Cromartie 7, Tyliah Freeman, Julia Flowers, Sana’a Singletary 7, Nia McKoy, Niyah Wooten 7, Grayce Edwards 2.
LAKEWOOD (45) — Takiyah Carr 8, Kaitlynn Martinez, Areona McKoy 31, Jasmin Crumpler 4, Trinity Bell 2, Jahmai Rich.
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