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Saks earns 64-40 victory in semifinals

Friday, February 10, 2012

Saks all but dominated a depleted White Plains squad to earn a 64-40 victory in the semifinals of the Class 3A, Area 9 girls basketball tournament at host Piedmont Thursday night.

Second-seeded Saks earned its 20th win of the season with the 24-point blowout of White Plains, which was down a pair of starters due to injury.

Saks had its full arsenal at its disposal and unleashed them on its opposition from the opening tap after which it opened up a commanding 12-4 lead in a little more than four minutes of action.

Saks got 25 points from 5-foot-2 senior point guard Addesha Collins. The Star’s 2011 Class 3A Calhoun County Player of the Year also added five rebounds, three assists and four steals. She scored 10 of her team’s 18 in the first quarter, adding a jumper in the lane at the buzzer to give Saks an 18-10 advantage heading into the second.

Junior Taylor West notched a double-double with 16 points including, three 3-pointers, and 14 rebounds to go along with three blocks.

Destinee Briskey added 12 points and five rebounds but made her biggest contribution on defense, limiting Jordan Coleman, one of White Plains better perimeter players, to just five points.

“Those two guards are really good, Briskey and Addesha. They’re special and they showed it,” White Plains coach Chris Randall said.

Blaire Crabtree led White Plains with 18 points. Her 11 rebounds put her over 1,000 boards for her career.

Collins and Briskey keyed Saks’ attack early combining to score all but one of their team’s first 21 points.

However, White Plains kept things respectable behind the solid play of Crabtree. She netted eight points in the first quarter, highlighted by a pair of 3-pointers.

A free throw by White Plains’ Amber Greenwood with 2:16 to play in the second cut its deficit to six points. A stop on the other end gave White Plains an opportunity to make it a two-basket game just before the half. But a 9-2 Saks run pushed the lead to 13 with under a minute remaining in the second.

Saks took a 35-24 lead into the half.

“They turned us over, made a bucket, got the and-1, missed the free throw, got the rebound and put it in,” Randall said, recounting the sequence that pushed his team’s deficit back to double-digits. “That was tough.”

White Plains held Saks scoreless for much of the first part of the third quarter. But Saks, which put up big numbers on offense in the first half, played just as big on defense in the second half, holding White Plains to just six points in the quarter.

“We kind of come out like that every third quarter when we’re up a little bit,” Saks coach Michelle Lively said. “We’re lax and we stop doing what’s working. But we never lose a step on defense. I think that’s what helps us stay in the games.”

Having qualified for sub-regional play with the win, Lively said it’s something her squad will have to tighten up on.

“Once we play a good team, they’ll go on a run if we are not going on a run” Lively said. “We won’t play teams that we can hold scoreless. Its’ going to create problems for us.”

Saks outscored White Plains 19-10 in the fourth.

Saks (20-9) will face Piedmont in the area championship game Monday night at 5 p.m.

The Lady Bulldogs (20-10) downed fifth-seeded Weaver 71-19 in the other semifinals matchup. Piedmont and Saks split a pair of area games with each team winning at home, but the Lady Bulldogs, who defeated Saks in a Thanksgiving game early in the season, won the coin toss for the right to host the area tournament.

“We’re just going to have to play all together,” Lively said when asked what her team needed to do in its fourth meeting with Piedmont.

“They have a lot of girls and a lot of threats that can score for them. We’re going to have to put a lot of pressure on Sarah Garner and BreAnna Thompson. We’re going to have to keep them under control. I think, if we can handle them, we’re going to be alright.”

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