Dougherty girls advance to 1-AAAA finals, Monroe girls fall in semifinals

ALBANY — For the Dougherty Lady Trojans, senior leadership shined Thursday night as they won a hard-fought, physical battle with Thomas County Central 50-43 Thursday night to advance to the Region 1-AAAA championship game.

In the first semifinal matchup, Bainbridge beat the Lady Tornadoes of Monroe 39-34. Dougherty (16-7) will now host No. 9-ranked Bainbridge (17-9) Tuesday night for the region championship with tipoff planned for 7:30 p.m.

The Dougherty-Thomas County Central game started out eerily similar to the Westover-Thomas Central game earlier this week when the Lady Jackets started out with a 9-0 lead and then held on to eliminate Westover from the region tournament. On Thursday night, the Lady Jackets led 7-0 to start the game as the Lady Trojans missed their first few baskets. But unlike Westover, Dougherty has Shakeria Hallman and she is a 3-point specialist. Hallman broke the scoring drought for the Lady Trojans with a long 3-pointer and fellow senior Kaylin Thompson swished another 3-pointer moments later to close the Thomas Central lead to just 7-6.

The teams battled closely throughout the contest with neither being able to get a real advantage. Every time Thomas Central would seem to have the momentum, Hallman would swish a 3-pointer.

However, things got scary for Dougherty in the second half when Hallman was on the bench with foul trouble, inside post player Jacquiline Buchanan was on the bench with four fouls and freshman point guard Jatiana Chambers had some serious leg issues that brought her to the bench. One thing Dougherty doesn’t have is a lot of depth.

Head Coach Khadijah Ali put her trust in senior guard Kaylin Thompson and Thompson kept the Lady Trojans in the game. She navigated a tough full-court press from the Lady Jackets and survived the physicality of hitting the floor numerous times. Once Thompson got through the press, Ali pulled her other players to one side of the court so Thompson could find a way around the defenders and get to the basket for points.

That strategy worked until Hallman and Chambers could reenter the game and provide some relief for Thompson. The Hallman and Thompson duo kept things from getting away from the Lady Trojans even though the Lady Jackets played extremely physical defense as they tried to overcome Dougherty’s slight lead.

Hallman led the scoring for Dougherty with 20 points, including six 3-point shots. Thompson followed with 13, including six in the final period. Buchanan added eight for the winners.

Amaya Simon and Aaleyna Ponder each scored 11 to lead the Lady Jackets.

The Monroe-Bainbridge game was just as tight as the second game. A 3-pointer from Bainbridge’s Taralyn Brown just before the half gave the Lady Bearcats a 24-22 advantage at the half and the two teams were tied 29-29 at the end of the third quarter.

Bainbridge scored the first six points of the fourth quarter and led 35-29. The Lady Bearcats then started playing keep away and working for an easy basket, but the Monroe defense led by Saniyah Graham knocked away a couple of balls. One was thrown to Kyla Raven, who swished a 3-pointer and then next was thrown to Aaliyah Robinson, who hit a jumper from the free-throw line to close the gap to 35-34. Unfortunately for the Lady Tornadoes, that was the end of the scoring and Bainbridge took the win.

Robinson led the scoring for Monroe with 11, Ciarra Lunsford scored eight, and Raven added seven.

Detavia Salter led Bainbridge with 13, Angie Peterson scored 11 and Kirston Noble added 10 for the Lady Bearcats.

Joe Whitfield