By Robert Wilson
Madison-Ridgeland Academy’s two returning starters, senior guards Anna Morgan Anderson and Anna Kate Woodward, scored all of the Lady Patriots’ 15 points in the first quarter in the season opener against Natchez Cathedral Tuesday night at MRA.
Defending MAIS Overall Tournament champion MRA rolled to a 49-15 victory over Cathedral.
But MRA coach Stephen Force – who started his 25th season at MRA and 31st overall season as head coach – knows that Anderson and Woodward can’t do it all if he wants to win back to back state and Overall championships.
Annie Toler, Presley Hughes (now playing basketball at West Florida), and Gabby Gray (now playing basketball and on the track team at Millsaps College) – MRA’s other starters last season – all graduated from last year’s team, which finished 36-5 and ranked No. 4 in Mississippi by MaxPreps.
The 5-foot-9 Anderson, who verbally committed to Mississippi Christian University Friday, averaged 13.5 points, 3.5 rebounds, 3 assists, and 3 steals despite battling various injuries throughout the season last year as a junior.
Anderson has made the first team on the Tatum and Wade/Mississippi Scoreboard Metro Jackson Team for the past two seasons. She has 1,699 career points going into the season and is within range of breaking the school record of Rivers’ Futral (2,200 points) this season. Anderson scored a career-high 36 points – tying for third best in school history – against Memphis East at the Collierville, Tenn., High Dragon Classic two years ago as a sophomore.
The 5-5 Woodward averaged 8.5 points, 4 rebounds, 3.5 assists, and 2 steals and made 81 percent of her free throw attempts last season as a junior.
Anderson and Woodward are members of the Tatum and Wade/Mississippi Scoreboard Preseason Metro Jackson Elite 11 Team.
The talented duo – who finished with 32 combined points, 9 steals, 7 rebounds, and 5 assists (Anderson had 17 points, 7 rebounds, 6 steals and 2 assists and Woodward 15 points, 3 assists and 3 steals) while playing only about 18 minutes each – can’t do it by themselves and Force is in search of players who can complement them this season.
Force, a Southern Baptist Education Center (now Northpoint Christian School), Northwest Mississippi Community College and Delta State graduate, won his 814th career game Tuesday (second to Pillow Academy’s Durwin Carpenter and is tied with Carpenter with four Overall girls titles, the most among active coaches, and fourth most in history. He was named the Tatum and Wade/Mississippi Scoreboard Metro Jackson Coach of the Year last season and was inducted into the MAIS Coaches Association Hall of Fame in 2025.
“I like this group, they are a different style of team, we have good size and length,” Force said. “This is the fastest and most aggressive team I’ve had in my 31 years of coaching. We’ve had more skilled players on teams that have won Overalls, but this is the most speed and depth.”
That’s not good news for the rest of the MAIS. The victory Tuesday night might be the first of many lopsided wins for Force and his team this season.
“We have a talented sophomore class, which only lost two games and won the conference last season,” Force said. “We have back (junior) Anne Wylie Moore, who missed most of last season with a knee injury and will help out at point guard so Anna Kate can move to the wing and shoot more. We have two more seniors, Macie Force (the coach’s daughter) and Reese Johnson, and junior Reeves Sumrall will come off the bench and contribute. Taylor Agent, Blair Britt, Cora Nisbett, Rivers McInteer, and Eliza Reynolds are among the sophomores who should help us now and down the road.”
“Just like every year no matter who is on the court since August, we have had to come to practice and be mentally prepared to get better and better every day,” Anderson said. “We have a whole new team and with that comes a lot of responsibility and trust for us seniors We have a really good and competitive sophomore class coming in this year and they are going to make a lot of impact and fill in the gaps from the five seniors we lost this year. With Anne Wylie back this year from tearing her ACL last year, we will have another point guard, which allows Anna Kate and I to both become more shooting guards and be able to spread the floor out.”
“We lost five really good seniors last year, but we have a lot of sophomores that came up to play,” Woodward said. “In order to have another successful season we are all going to have to work hard and push each other to become better each day. Our team is a lot shorter than the teams in the past, but we have a lot of girls who are fast, which I think will benefit us. Anne Wylie is also back from tearing her ACL last year, so having her will be a big help. She will be moved to the point guard position and I’ll be able to be more of a shooting guard this year.”
While MRA has a lot of talent and is one the deepest teams in Force’s career and the Lady Patriots have a Hall of Fame coach, the schedule presents some difficult challenges this season and will be tested in November and December.
MRA plays Parklane Academy and East Rankin Academy next week at the Jackson Prep Girls Invitational, has a visit to MHSAA Class 7A Tupelo next Saturday, a rematch of the Overall championship game with Simpson Academy Nov. 10 and play Tennessee public schools Collierville and Houston in the MRA Thanksgiving tournament. MRA plays in the Newman Classic in New Orleans, has a trip to Pillow and MHSAA Class 4A Choctaw Central, a game with defending MAIS Class 3A state champion Leake Academy in the Kirk Invitational, and a trip to Memphis for the always tough Dragonfire Invitational.
