By Robert Wilson
MADISON – Speed.
Madison-Ridgeland Academy girls basketball coach Stephen Force said he has more of it on this year’s team than any team he has coached in his 31-year head coaching career.
Defending MAIS Overall Tournament champion MRA created 16 turnovers, which turned into numerous fast break layups, as the Lady Patriots pulled away in the second half for a 57-41 victory over Simpson Academy Tuesday night in a rematch of last year’s Overall championship game before an estimated 400 at MRA’s Duease Hall.
MRA improved to 5-0 and won its fifth straight game by double figures. The Lady Patriots won their first four games by an average of 26 points.
Defending MAIS Class 4A, Division I state champion Simpson dropped to 4-1.
MRA defeated Simpson three times in four meetings last season, including a 37-25 victory in Overall championship game.
Senior guard and Mississippi Christian University commitment Anna Morgan Anderson and senior guard Anna Kate Woodward are the only two starters back from that MRA team, which finished with a 36-5 record and ranked No. 4 in Mississippi by MaxPreps.
Force, a Southern Baptist Education Center (now Northpoint Christian School), Northwest Mississippi Community College and Delta State graduate, won his 818th 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.
Force – who is in his 25th year at MRA – likes his team this year, especially with a talented sophomore class moving up to varsity this season, and passed his first test of the season with the win over Simpson.
After a back and forth first half, MRA took control in the third quarter and pulled away from a 26-22 halftime advantage. Woodward and junior guard Anne Wylie Moore – who returned this year after missing most of last season with an ACL injury – made three-pointers to help fuel an 8-0 run for a 34-24 early in the third quarter.
Simpson 6-foot senior forward, William Carey commitment and Lamar Christian transfer Hope Roney – last year’s MAIS Class 2A Player of the Year – picked up her fourth foul with five minutes to play in the third quarter and MRA took advantage of her not being in the game. MRA led 44-31 after three quarters and scored the first seven points of the fourth quarter. MRA led by as much as 21 points in the fourth quarter.
“We made some adjustments at halftime,” Force said. “I think our pressure affected their plays and created some turnovers. We dropped some players to help and rotated more players over. We must have blocked six or seven shots. We want to run and we did a good job doing that and got some easy baskets. Simpson has a good team and (sophomore guard) Elle (McNulty) is tough to guard. (Sophomore guard) Blair Britt is just learning how to guard good players like Elle and she did a good job and will get better. We knew Simpson would come in and give us everything they had. They did, but we are going to get that every time we play. Being the Overall champions means there is target on our back. We have been in the Overall finals for four straight years and everyone is coming after us. They want to knock you off the top. We want to climb the mountain again with this team.”
The 5-foot-9 Anderson led MRA with 17 points, 6 rebounds and 6 assists. She 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. Anderson has already had a big game this season. She scored a season-high 31 points in Saturday’s 66-52 victory over MHSAA Class 7A Tupelo.
Anderson was instrumental in the win Tuesday, not only scoring points, but also creating turnovers, making steals, and passing to the open player for assists.
“The rematch with Simpson is always fun because they are always a good team and are well coached,” Anderson said. “We have to prepare and come ready to play every time we play them. I think the keys for us were starting on the defensive end, pressuring the ball and then getting stops then moving the ball in transition. On offense, we were very aggressive, which is what we have to do to win games. We moved the ball well and made the right reads late in the game that were key possessions for us.“
In addition to guarding McNulty, MRA’s Britt had a career-high 12 points.
The 5-10 McNulty – daughter of Simpson head boys coach and assistant girls coach Josh McNulty – led Simpson with 14 points. She came into the game averaging 20 points per game despite not playing a full game yet this season. McNulty had one of the best performances in Overall history when she scored a school-record 42 points and made an MAIS record 12 3-pointers in a 70-24 victory over Ben’s Ford, La., in a first-round game last season as a freshman.
Simpson coach Linda Dear – who has won 681 games and five state championships in 41 seasons in her outstanding career, 24 seasons at Simpson – had been looking forward to this rematch since last year’s Overall championship game.
“I thought we played a really good first half but we came out flat in the third quarter — they outscored us 18-9 in the third quarter,” Dear said. “They play great defense and that resulted in too many turnovers and empty possessions for us. We are a young team and I think that showed tonight. We will get better and we will see them again.”
In addition to McNulty, freshman forward Gracie Pinkerton had 13 points and 10 rebounds.
When playing at home, the opposing side shows a much more aggressive attack.