Much like it has throughout the season, Tallassee’s youth and inexperience caught up to the Tigers on Saturday afternoon.
The Tallassee girls basketball team saw its season come to an end in the first round of the AHSAA Class 5A, Area 7 tournament with a road trip to Beauregard.
Beauregard beat Tallassee, 38-34, in overtime. The Tigers (16-12) went winless (0-5) against area opponents with four of the five losses coming by five points or less and two of the losses coming in overtime.
For first year coach Alfonzo Johnson, it was another game of his young team not being able to finish.
“We gave a great effort and we fixed a lot of the problems we have been having, but we just didn’t finish at the end,” Johnson said. “We had a two-point lead with 20 seconds left and we got a bad foul that didn’t go our way. You’ll get that from a young team filled with freshmen. When it got to overtime, we just didn’t hit our shots and missed our free throws.”
Tallassee may have missed the postseason by an overtime loss, but that doesn’t diminish the steps Johnson’s team took this season.
The Tigers feature only one senior while two freshmen, an eighth grader and a sophomore all start and play significant minutes.
Most of the same girls started a year ago, and that team won only four games. Johnson’s squad has won four times as many as that squad, and was 20 seconds away from clinching a playoff berth.
“I think we’re getting really better,” Johnson said. “We’re young and a lot of the growing pains that you have as a ninth grader like situational basketball, we’ve gotten better at it. We’re mentally stronger and more athletic. A lot of our girls went from middle school or rec league basketball straight to varsity. I think we’re getting used to the sport and the future is bright.”
One of the bright spots in the final stretch of games for Tallassee has been junior Sha’Niya Gray. Gray was not one of the team's top scoring options early in the year but has slowly seen her role increase with the team.
In the last two weeks, that has especially been the case.
In two non-area games against Ellwood Christian and Barbour County in late January, she scored 23 points and 15 points to be the team’s top scorer.
In Saturday’s loss, she scored a team-high 15 points.
“She’s just really stepped up for us,” Johnson said. “When I took over the team, I was told she was a good shooter. But the biggest thing about her is that she shows up. She cares about the game and she gave us everything she had. That shows in the way she plays.”
-- Dalton Middleton, Tallassee Tribune