By Robert Wilson
The foursome on Madison-Ridgeland Academy girls basketball team – Presley Hughes, Annie Toler, Anna Morgan Anderson, and AnnaKate Woodward – had a combined 56 games of Overall Tournament experience entering Tuesday’s championship game with Simpson Academy.
Add onto that wealth of experience, MRA coach Stephen Force was coaching in his eighth Overall championship game.
In addition, Hughes, Toler and Anderson were playing and Force was coaching in their fourth consecutive Overall championship game.
The experience and MRA’s defensive effort paid dividends and helped the Lady Patriots to a 37-25 victory over Simpson before an estimated 2,200 at Mississippi College’s A.E. Wood Coliseum/Mike Jones Court in Clinton.
Class 4A, Division II champion MRA – ranked No. 5 in Mississippi and No. 1 in MAIS by MaxPreps – finished with a 36-5 record and won its sixth Overall championship in school history.
MRA defeated Simpson for the third time in four meetings this season, MRA had beaten Simpson twice in the regular season, 46-27 Jan. 13 at MRA and 56-55 in overtime Jan. 30 at Simpson before the South State loss when the Lady Patriots led by 24 points late in the second quarter before Simpson made its incredible comeback and finished when senior guard Jayda Smith made a 5-foot jumper in the lane with 11 seconds to play for the 48-46 victory.
But since that day, MRA has taken care of business. MRA won the next five playoff games by an average of 22.8 points, all the wins by double figures.
Simpson – ranked No. 6 in Mississippi and No. 2 in the MAIS – finished 31-6 and was denied its first Overall championship. The Lady Cougars reached their only title game in 1996 and lost to Jackson Academy.
Force won his 813th career game along with his fourth Overall title, tying him with Pillow Academy’s Durwin Carpenter for most girls Overall titles among active coaches. Force finished his 30th year as a head coach, 24th at MRA after six at Starkville Academy. He is also second behind Carpenter in victories among active girls basketball coaches in the MAIS.
MRA lost a 14-point lead in the fourth quarter and Parklane Academy won 48-46 last year in the Overall championship game.
This year, MRA never lost the lead. MRA led 13-5 after the first quarter, 21-15 at halftime, and 31-21 after three quarters.
The Overall experience helped. Hughes, a senior guard/forward and West Florida signee, Toler, a senior forward, Anderson, a junior guard, and Woodard, a junior guard, all had much Overall experience over the past several years. Hughes, Toler and Anderson at MRA and Woodard at Presbyterian Christian School in Hattiesburg before she transferred to MRA this year.
Hughes – whose father, Whit, won two Overalls at Jackson Prep and mother, Shelley, won one Overall at Jackson Academy – had 10 points, 9 rebounds, 3 blocked shots, and 1 assist. Anderson had 9 points, 5 rebounds, 3 assists, 3 blocked shots and 2 steals. Toler – whose father, Stanton, won an Overall at Prep and was a teammate of Whit Hughes – had seven points, and four blocked shots. Woodward had 7 points, 6 rebounds and 2 assists.
With Hughes on Smith and Anderson on Simpson’s talented freshman Elle McNulty – who scored a school-record 42 points in the first round of the Overall – Simpson had trouble scoring. The Lady Cougars made only 11.6 percent of their shots from the field and had 10 shots blocked by MRA.
“We work on our defense every day in practice,” Force said. “If you aren’t making shots, you can still play good defense. It’s a mindset. My players buy into that philosophy. I’ve got a group of girls who believe in it. And our girls are long and athletic. That makes a big difference. We held Simpson to 11 percent shooting and anytime you do that you have a chance to win. We have held our opponents below 30 percent shooting all year. We had girls who were tough and great leaders on the 2023 Overall championship team. Presley and Anna Morgan were still young then and learning how to be tough and be leaders. We lost two tough championship games over the last two years. They have grown. You have to learn how to lose before you learn how to win. I have a group of hard workers and good leaders this year. It paid off.”
“The Overall championship game is not like any other game,” Hughes said. “It’s a different feeling that’s hard to describe unless you’ve played in it. We knew I was going to take an elite defensive effort to beat a really good opponent and I’m just proud of how we played together and finished the right way. I can promise you no team worked harder and no team wanted it more. I love this group of girls and these seniors and these coaches. What a special way to finish our season as Overall champions. I’m so thankful and proud.”
“Simpson is such a great team and has some of the best shooters in the MAIS so we knew we were going to have to get a hand in their face all night,” Toler said. “I thought Anna Morgan, Presley, and Anna Kate did an incredible job on their three guards. After losing in the championship game the last two years, we were focused on our mission to win Overall and so happy that we were able to do it.”
“This win was something special,” Anderson said. “The adversity this team has had over the past few months and years is something I will never get over. But we never took our eyes off that gold ball and we knew we wanted to be the last team standing no matter who we were playing. However, the fact we were playing Simpson and what happened last time we played them we knew it wouldn’t happen again. I’m so proud of every single one of the players. Each one of us stepped up in different ways that helped us play smarter and harder than Simpson. Defense wins games and we knew if we could make Simpson’s scorers take difficult and contested shots we would win.”
Smith – a Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College softball signee – led Simpson with seven points.
“We just couldn’t get our shots to fall,” said Simpson coach Linda Dear, who has 677 career wins to go along with five state championships, all at Simpson, in 40 career seasons, 23 at Simpson. “MRA has great length and that really bothered us. MRA is a great team and they showed that tonight. I’m proud of my team and if I had to go into any kind of battle, I would want them to go with me. I wouldn’t trade my team and my coaches for any team anywhere. We are proud of our state championship and we won’t let losing tonight diminish that pride.”
