Covington girls season ends in state quarterfinals

 images and article from Commercial Appeal

Covington's J'La Brandon (10) defends against Macon County's Kelsey Gregory (10)

 After 10 relatively unsuspenseful state girls basketball tournament games, Thursday’s AA quarterfinal showdown between Covington and Macon County finally produced some late-game excitement.

Unfortunately for the Chargers, they simply ran out of time.

Terra Pryor scored 21 points as Macon County (29-4) built a big early lead and held off a fourth-quarter charge to defeat Covington, 65-63.

Covington head coach Dion Real talks with Janekia Mason (21)

 The Chargers, who won district and regional championships this season, end with a 34-3 record.
“I think we could have come all the way back,” said Chargers senior standout Ashia Jones, a UT Martin signee. “We just needed a couple more minutes.”

The first 10 games at state had produced an average margin of victory of 20.2 points, a number that would have been even more lopsided if not for Overton’s six-point victory over Antioch on Wednesday. But Covington bucked that trend by staging a big comeback.

Thanks to some efficient 3-point shooting — the Tigerettes finished 8 of 19 from beyond the arc — Macon County built an eight-point lead after the first quarter and was able to maintain a reasonably comfortable margin for much of the rest of the game.

The Chargers trailed 50-38 heading into the fourth, but chipped away behind the play of Jones, a 6-1 senior who closed out her career with 23 points and 15 rebounds, and senior guard Precious Dyson, who made all four of Covington’s 3-pointers and finished with 16 points.

Dyson knocked down a 3-pointer with 1:25 to go to pull Covington to 61-59. Macon County responded with free throws by Briley Driver and Kailynn Brooks, sandwiched around missed 3-point shots by Dyson and Briuna Dean, and still led 63-59 with 30 seconds to go.

But Covington refused to go away, and Jones’ bucket cut it to 63-61. Two free throws by Kelsey Gregory with 11 seconds left finally gave Macon County a chance to relax, with Jones scoring for Covington with one-tenth of a second remaining.

“Players make plays,” said Chargers coach Dion Real. “But I think we showed a lot of character in coming back. It speaks volumes to the kind of players we have.”

Said Tigerettes coach Jeff Beam, “Hats off to Covington. We shot the ball extremely well ... but they just didn’t quit. They showed a lot of class.”

Precious Harvey added 10 points and six assists for the Chargers, who shot 47.2 percent and committed just nine turnovers.

Covington, which entered the game on a 21-game winning streak, was making its first appearance at state since 2002.

Real said the tournament inexperience showed, but the loss does nothing to take away from what the Chargers accomplished this year.

“I think we were anxious and nervous at first, and it took us some time to play ourselves into the game,” he said. “We just expended so much energy trying to come back.

“But I’m extremely proud of the year we had. I think if you asked a lot of the teams in our area, they wouldn’t have imagined we would have had the kind of year we had.”