By Tanner Marlar
When the final buzzer sounded on a night in which Booneville basketball head coach Michael Smith coached yet another pair of games, he and the rest of the Blue Devils achieved something that very few other schools have done in Mississippi’s history.
The air held a feeling of excitement, but in broader terms, the Blue Devils were still all business. That’s because they’ve been here before, they’ve done this before, and they want to do it again.
“[Making it to Jackson] is really hard,” said Smith after his boys defeated the East Webster Wolverines 56-48. “It’s hard just to get there, and when you’re having to win playoff games like this where everyone is playing for their season, regardless of records, at this point in the year, it’s just hard to win…this is five years in a row for the guys to play for a championship…and this is four years for the girls.”
The girls game between Yazoo County and the Blue Devils was a one-point game in the fourth quarter before Booneville senior Ava Kathryn Smith nailed a three to spur her team’s momentum forward. Her teammates responded with a run to shut the door on the quarterfinal matchup, and seal the win via a final score of 40-33.
“We had some seniors that really made some plays that younger kids hadn’t made throughout the game, and I think they just kind of said ‘enough, we’re going to make a play to try to win it,'” said Smith of his girls squad’s late-game heroics. “And that’s what champions are supposed to do.”
The boys contest proved to be a physical one, with both teams racking up foul calls early and often. Blue Devil forward Elijah Dukes picked up a pair early on along with junior Camryn Hampton, which took both rebounding presences out of the fray for a significant portion of the first half.
“It [had] been dicey the whole game,” said Smith of the physical tone of the boys’ matchup. “I think you can watch the game and you can see how it was played the whole game, and the physicality, the plays that were made…we started playing to try to run the clock and just get out of the gym, because everyone’s in a spot where, if you lose your composure at this level, at this time of year, your season’s over.”
While the Wolverines worked to close the gap on the scoreboard, Booneville senior point guard Dalton Jackson worked to widen it. With Dukes fouled out late in the fourth quarter and the defensive attention on Jackson State commit Kedrick Simmons drawing the defensive attention of the Wolverines, Jackson stepped up to shoulder the scoring load. The Pearl River Community College commit sunk a pair of free throws and drove to the basket for a fourth quarter layup to slam home the final nail in the coffin on the night.
For Jackson, he said that he had prepared for that moment, so when it came, he was ready.
“We work out all the time,” said Jackson. “You’ve got to be prepared for the moment, for real…Everybody kept their composure, stayed calm and just kept playing hard, got stops and just finished on offense.”
The Blue Devil girls team advanced to play Kemper County on Tuesday at 10:30 a.m. while the boys will play South Pike at noon.
