JACKSON COUNTY TOURNAMENT: NSM wins first county championship since 2014
Jason Bowen
Jeremiah Haynes walked through the door to the North Sand Mountain locker room and was soaked by water-bottle armed players.
That happened just minutes after the NSM varsity girls basketball program made its biggest splash during Haynes’ six head-coaching tenure.
The second-seeded and Class 2A No. 10-ranked Bison built a double-digit first-half lead and held off top-seeded and No. 8 Pisgah 66-62 to win NSM’s first Jackson County Tournament championship in 11 years during Saturday’s title game at North Jackson High School in Stevenson.
The first three years of Haynes’ NSM tenure produced just 19 wins, but the Bison have won 15 or more games in each of the past three seasons with many current players having played key roles in the Bison’s rise.
“My first three years were tough, trying to rebuild a program. When people could’ve given up on me, they didn’t. NSM’s been good to me,” Haynes said. “These girls have worked so hard. A lot of them have been on the varsity since they were real young and they’ve seen the down years, but they continued to work. They’re resilient and now they’re county champions. I’m happy for them.”
The county championship was the seventh all-time for NSM and its first since winning back-to-back titles in 2013 and 2014.
After trailing 5-0 to start the game, NSM (16-8) used a 15-0 first-quarter scoring run to take a lead it never surrendered. The Bison led 18-11 after one quarter and led by as many as 15 in the second following a Madison Renfro 3-pointer before carrying a 33-24 advantage into halftime.
Pisgah (13-6), which was trying to win its 26th county title, trailed 49-40 after three quarters before cutting the NSM lead to 59-56 on Paisley Patalas’ 3-pointer with 1:09 remaining. But free throws from Kayden Reyes extended the Bison’s lead back to six with just over 30 seconds remaining, and NSM sank 4-of-6 foul shots the rest of the way to secure the win.
Reyes, the tournament MVP, finished with 21 points, seven assists, three rebounds and three steals for NSM while teammates Madison Renfro posted 19 points and four rebounds and Kali Kirkpatrick tallied 17 points and eight rebounds on their way to collecting all-tournament honors.
Haynes said Kirkpatrick’s efforts were pivotal with fellow NSM center Abby Shaffer in foul trouble.
“Kali Kirkpatrick was an X-factor,” he said. “This team really needs a third person each night to step up and score, and she was that tonight. She played more minutes tonight than she has ever played. She did everything. She shot from the outside, she rebounded, she made those dump-off layups, she guarded like crazy.”
The Bison also got four points and five rebounds from Shaffer, two points, seven rebounds and four assists from Cara Holder, two points and two steals from Kaleigh Roberts and one point, five rebounds and four steals from Raygan Weldon.
Pisgah got 29 and 16 points respectively from all-tournament selections Patalas and Campbell Barron while Ashton Childress had eight, Madeline Flammia six, Taylor Bell two and Alli Romans one.
With new AHSAA area tiebreakers now factoring in non-area game results between area teams, NSM’s win assured that the teams’ Jan. 27 matchup at NSM will decide the Class 2A Area 16 regular-season champion and which team hosts the upcoming area tournament.
“Wining tonight is huge for our program but it’s not an end-goal,” said Haynes, whose team fell to the Eagles 63-52 in the first area game between the teams. “We play them again in few days for an area championship and know that’s going to be a tough game. We’ve got to get back to work and focus on that (game) and then the postseason, because we’re still chasing some (goals).”
› JACKSON COUNTY BASKETBALL VARSITY GIRLS ALL-TOURNAMENT TEAM — NSM's Kayden Reyes (MVP), Kali Kirkpatrick, Madison Renfor; Pisgah's Campbell Barron, Paisley Patalas; Skyline's Bella Avans; Woodville's Lannah Grace Beard; North Jackson's Sheyann Brown; Section's Millie Gentry