Berkeley 54 – Greenville 50
by Chris Dearing
COLONIAL LIFE ARENA
- Sophomore Alaina Carter scored a career-high 29 points, including the first 11 points of the fourth quarter, to propel Berkeley to its second straight Class 5A, Division II girls basketball state championship with a 54-50 victory over Greenville Wednesday night.
- It’s the first time in school history that a sports team at Berkeley won back-to-back titles.
- “It’s very special,” Berkeley coach Crystal Peace said. “We had goals since the beginning of the year and resilient has been out word all season. We hit some bumps and bruises along the way but my job as a leader is to keep them believing in the things that we worked on. We had some crazy plays but we finished the game. I’m extremely proud of this group.”
- Carter finished 11-of-15 from the field that included 5-of-7 on three-pointers to top the career-high of 24 points that she scored last week in the lower state championship victory over Goose Creek. Her final points came on a layup with 3:31 remaining that gave the Stags a 45-35 lead.
- Greenville (22-8) rallied behind Ava Owens and Makayla Assemian and trimmed the deficit to three points twice in the final 30 seconds, but Berkeley (24-5) made 3-of-4 free throws in the final 25 seconds to seal the victory.
- The Lady Raiders jumped out to an early lead and had a 12-6 advantage after one quarter. But the Stags outscored them 15-7 in the second quarter to lead 21-19 at the half. Berkeley never trailed after that.
- Amani McCray chipped in eight points for the victors. Owens paced the Greenville attack with 19 points and 12 rebounds while Assemian added 14 points.