Talented and tenacious Archer girls prove too much for South Gwinnett

When the Archer High School Girls Basketball team rolled into South Gwinnett High School on Thursday night, which the Comets had set aside to honor their seniors, there was only one thing on its mind: finishing the regular season with a win.

“We prepare for each game the same, nothing changes,” Archer head coach Lamar Harris said when asked how his team prepared to handle the emotions of an opposing Senior Night. “Nothing is more important than your next opponent, so we take the same approach whether it’s Senior Night or the first game, it doesn’t matter.”

And finish with a win they did as the Tigers, ranked No. 14 in Georgia by SBLive Sports, handled their business, leading wire-to-wire against South Gwinnett and claiming a 24-point victory, 45-21.

Archer started the game quick, getting out to an 8-2 run in the first three minutes of the game. However it was less of an emphasis on offense and more a result of the Tigers tenacity on defense, not giving the Comets any room to breathe. With several huge blocks and some steals, Archer spent much of the first half creating in transition, allowing seven different Tigers to get on the score sheet. Harris said that high-speed, intense defense is his team’s identity.

“We want to push the tempo,” he said. “We play with a shot clock now, I think that benefits teams that are aggressive defensively. We try to hang our hat on defense, pressure on-ball, anticipating the ball, anticipating the next pass, moving on the flight of the ball, the basics. And when we’re locked in, we’re locked in.”

This allowed Archer to get out to a pretty sizable lead early, holding South Gwinnett to only four points in the first quarter. But the second quarter turned out to be a bit of a different story. While still holding South Gwinnett to only eight points, Archer only managed one goal from the field the entire quarter. Harris chalked up the early struggles to experimentation.

“Going into our Region Tournament, we tried to look at a few different things,” he said. “It didn’t look good, so we just had to get back to doing what we do.”

Coming out of halftime with a 22-12 lead, Archer got back to playing its brand of basketball which led to the success it has become known for. The Tigers once again had five different scorers in the third quarter including a clutch three from Taj Hunter that interrupted South Gwinnett’s biggest surge on offense in the game. Hunter’s big shot kept the Comets out of reach, allowing Archer to survive what turned out to be South Gwinnett’s last push.

The Tigers finished the third quarter with back-to-back buckets to give them a 33-21 lead heading into the fourth. From there, Archer held South Gwinnett scoreless the entire last frame, closing out the game on a 16-0 run going back to the previous quarter.Ashanti Bryant and Hunter led the way for the Tigers with 10 and nine points, respectively, with eight different players scoring at least one basket for Archer. Harris feels his “balanced” attack with multiple scorers gives his team an advantage as it advances into tournament play.

“We have a lot of balance on offense. We’ll have six players averaging eight points throughout the week and then that’ll change to a different six players the week after,” he said. “We have good balance. Everybody can score the ball.”

Harris had 10 different players that touched the floor in the game, which effectively served as a final warmup before the region tournament. The coach said he’s attempting to get as many players prepared to play important minutes as possible for the postseason.

“Our main goal is to get them ready because we don’t know who we’ll need in the weeks to come,” Harris said. “I’m so optimistic about what the future holds, so we’re just trying to get bodies ready. Whether they make mistakes or not, they have to experience this so next week or the week after won’t be their first time. So we’re just giving everyone opportunities and we think they did fairly well.”

And with potentially a month of win-or-go-home basketball lying ahead, Harris still feels his team hasn’t hit its ceiling.

“I think there’s a lot of upside for us,” he said. “I think we have a lot of room to grow. Right now, we want to be the best we can be. We want to compete and give ourselves an opportunity to win every game. I still think there’s room to grow.”