Lady Raiders roll into Friday night’s region championship after big win over Winder-Barrow

For the second year in a row, Habersham Central High School’s varsity girls basketball team will be hosting a state playoff game and battling for a region championship, this time after a lopsided, 50-16, win over Winder-Barrow High School Thursday night.

The Lady Raiders (12-11) will host Clarke Central High School Friday night at 7 p.m. for the Region 8-AAAAA championship game.

HCHS Head Coach Bill Bradley said he was reflecting on the annual meeting with the parents he held before preseason started. He told the parents and the players then that the goals the team would have this season would be different, and for good reason.

“I told our parents I thought we had a legitimate chance to win a region championship and it wasn’t a little bit far-fetched,” Bradley said. ‘Goals are supposed to be realistic and all those things. When you’re sitting there in a region with Buford (High School) or North Forsyth (High School), it’s not 100 percent realistic. It’s possible…

“I told them that and our kids that and we talked about it before preseason, then we go out and we were 2-8, then it’s like ‘Maybe we shouldn’t have done all that,” he continued. “But now here we are.”

HCHS and Clarke Central split their regular season matchups with both home teams winning. On Jan. 9 in Athens, the Lady Gladiators knocked off HCHS by a score of 52-43. The two met again on Feb. 4 in Mt. Airy, resulting in a 14-point victory for the Lady Raiders.

The Lady Raiders have put on a defensive clinic in the first two region tournament games, holding their opponents to a combined 29 points.

Thursday, HCHS held the Lady Bulldoggs scoreless in the third quarter while scoring 24 points of its own. In the fourth, the Lady Raiders only allowed five points.

“I don’t know. I can’t explain it,” Bradley said of his team’s defensive dominance in the third quarter. “We challenged them at halftime to come out and be who they were and continue it. Don’t play timid, don’t play scared. Go be who you are and dadgum if they didn’t go do it.”

On the offensive side, the Lady Raiders were carried by a pair of freshmen on Thursday.

Guard Sadie Chambers and forward Tessa Murdock put on a clinic. Each finished the game with 18 points.

Chambers put together her night with a trio of 3-pointers, going 3-for-4 from the foul line, and three midrange jumpers. All this before being pulled early in the fourth quarter.

“She’s a good basketball player and she’s going to be a really, really good basketball player,” Bradley said. “I thought her defense was good. A couple of times she got lost in what they were doing defensively and what we needed to be doing offensively. There’s still things she can improve on, but she’s playing with so much confidence right now.”

Murdock had just four points at the half before pouring it on in the third quarter. She scored 14 of the team’s 24 points in the third period. Murdock was also taken out of the game early in the fourth.

“You can count on (her putting in a good effort),” Bradley said. “You can count on a couple of fouls, a couple of turnovers, but that’s just how she plays. But that’s also the reason she’s able to go and get all those rebounds. She just plays (wide open) all the time.”

With the victory putting the girls in position to play for a region title, the attention now turns to an unexpected opponent in Clarke Central as opposed to the team the Lady Gladiators beat – Jackson County High School.

Jackson County went through the entire regular season with losing only one region game, which coincidentally came against HCHS in Mt. Airy. That was the second in a six-game region win streak.

The last game in that six-game streak came on Feb. 4 against the same Clarke Central squad they’ll now contend with for the ultimate prize in this tournament. That game was separated by 14 points.

Along with having a chance at a region championship, the Lady Raiders will also host a state title game against either Lee County High School or Northside High School (Warner Robins) out of Region 2. Who exactly the Lady Raiders will play will depend on the result of the consolation game between those two teams and the championship game Friday night for HCHS.

Getting to host a state playoff game, especially for the second year in a row, is an accomplishment in its own right.

For now, it’s the season for checking boxes.

Win the first round region tournament game and make the state tournament? Check.

Win the second round region tournament game to have a shot at the region title and be able to host a state playoff game? Check.

The next box to be checked results in hoisting a trophy at the end of the night Friday. The Lady Raiders are just four quarters, 32 minutes of play, from doing just that. If they’re able to lift that trophy, it would mean the ninth straight win over a region opponent.

“We’ve obviously got a lot of confidence and our confidence is in our defense,” Bradley said. ”We just play such good defense. Our kids play defense with and for one another. They understand it’s a source of pride for us.

“We like our chances (against Clarke Central) because defense doesn’t normally take a night off and that’s what we’re going to do tomorrow night.”

The championship game will tip off at 7 p.m. at Raider Gymnasium.