3 keys to Norcross girls' Georgia state championship win: 'Stay close, stay close, stay close'

The Blue Devils struggled with their shot for three quarters, but they stayed in the game against Harrison and pounced in the fourth.

Author:
David Friedlander
Publish date:
Mar 14, 2022 11:58 AM EDT

By David Friedlander | Photos by Cecil Copeland

MACON, Ga. — Three-quarters through the Georgia Class 7A girls state basketball championship game between Norcross and Harrison, points were hard to come by.

But while both teams picked up the scoring in the fourth quarter, the Blue Devils found their range more consistently, allowing them to turn around a four-point deficit and run past the Hoyas for a 41-37 victory Saturday.

Zaria Hurston (15 points, 16 rebounds) and Jania Akins (14 points, seven rebounds) were the two biggest keys as Norcross (26-5) scored 22 points in the fourth quarter — more than the previous three quarters combined — to win the program's first state title since 2013.

And the Blue Devils did it using the same postseason formula — by turning defense into offense with a stifling full-court press.

“It was a tough game,” third-year Norcross coach Ashley Clanton said. “We shot abysmally, and the only way to stay in a game like that is to play some defense. … We like to stay close, stay close, stay close, (but) if nothing's working, then we (use full-court press to) give us a little bit of a boost. And it has. It's helped us all season.”

While Harrison (27-4) also struggled with its shooting just a week after hitting 13 3-pointers in a semifinal win over Archer, Norcross still needed a boost.

The Hoyas built a seven-point lead midway through the third quarter and still led 23-17 after a layup by Alisha Foster with 2:01 left in the period, part of her team-high 14 points.

Hurston hit a jumper with 1:11 left to cut the deficit to 23-19 heading into the fourth quarter, when the Blue Devils came out in the press and turned the game around.

“(Clanton) told us that we're not going to lose this game, and that we have this game if we keep our energy and play good defense,” Akins said. “And that's what we did. We came up and played good defense in the fourth quarter.”

Akins got Norcross' surge started by finishing off a fast break started by a Hurston defensive rebound with a layup off a feed from DeNaeja Morton to pull within 23-21 just 51 seconds into the fourth quarter.

But it was a sequence about 30 seconds later in which the 5-foot-10 sophomore made her biggest impact on the comeback.

First, she found open space in the left corner and took another pass from Morton to knock down a 3-pointer to vault the Blue Devils into a 24-23 lead — their first lead since the early minutes of the second quarter — with 6:30 remaining.

Just 10 seconds later, Akins drained another 3-pointer from the opposite corner off a feed from Kayla Lindsey to push the lead to 27-23 and ignite her teammates.

“I know when I made that (first 3-pointer), everybody was going to get the energy,” Akins said. “Yeah, I was feeling it. I was shooting the ball.”

The lead reached 37-29 when Hurston capped a 7-1 run with a pair of free throws with 2:04 left, but Harrison wasn't done yet.

A free throw by Foster, a 3-pointer by Emily Acampora and a layup by Foster completed a run of six straight points in 42 seconds that left the Hoyas down 37-35 with a minute to play.

But Hurston stopped the run by corralling the rebound of her own missed shot and drew a foul before hitting 1 of 2 free throws, and then finished off an assist by Akins with a layup that gave Norcross breathing room at 40-35 with 18 seconds left.

Akins added a free throw with eight seconds left that salted away the win and the title, which was particularly satisfying for seniors Hurston, Morton and LaNiya Kenon.

“I wanted to say that (in) my last game, we won, and we were able to make history since this was the first (title) since 2013,” said Hurston, who will play her college ball at DePaul.