Lumpkin Girls Basketball wins State!

With 3.9 seconds left, what had been an intense focus for 30 games and 31 minutes finally began to ease as Kate Jackson could no longer hold in her smile as she met Averie Jones near the middle of the court.
The final 3.9 seconds expired stress-free thanks to two clutch free throws, extending Lumpkin’s lead to four and setting off the celebration that started on the court with jumping and screaming matched by the celebration of the hundreds of fans that filled the Lumpkin half of the Macon Centerplex as the 2021-2022 LCHS Girls Basketball team hoisted the GHSA State Championship trophy for the first time in the school’s history.
“After everything we’ve been through this season, we’ve been through so much this whole season, with twists and turns,” Jackson said. “Whatever story could be written about us could be written, but it all worked out in the end. This is where we were supposed to be.”
While the feeling still hadn’t sunk in for Jones as her teammates took photos with their parents and supporters while wearing their shiny first place medals, a brief moment of clarity came in the midst of the hazy on-court celebration when she first held up the trophy, adorned with a freshly cut net, and read the words “State Champions” aloud to her teammates.
“I held it up and was like ‘State Champs!’ and that’s all I needed to read,” Jones said.
As for the celebrations that would follow for the five hours until the team arrived back to the school, Dowse was prepared.
“I brought my own earbuds so I don’t have to listen to Taylor Swift all the way home,” he said, “but I can tell you it will be a Taylor Swift concert for about three hours back home.”

UPHILL FINISH

Entering the fourth quarter of Friday’s state championship game, down by eight points, marked the first time since November that the Indians faced a deficit in the final period of a game, and perhaps the first time in equally as long that bringing home Lumpkin’s first ever state championship in basketball was ever in question.
Then the magic that the team has become known for took over, ensuring that this team will forever be remembered as Georgia State Champions.
“I’m super impressed, but I’m not surprised,” Dowse said of his team’s comeback late in the game. “That’s their makeup. That’s who they are. And when you play for each other and not yourself like that group does, special things happen. The bottomline is they didn’t want to let each other down….And that’s the end result.”
Point guard Lexi Pierce said it came down to one simple thing that kept running through her mind down the stretch.
“I’m not getting second place,” Pierce said. “I was like ‘we’re not losing this.’”

ON A MISSION

The championship marks the first for Lumpkin County in basketball, boys or girls, and only the sixth team state championship in a GHSA sport at LCHS, joining wrestling, rifle team, literary team and one act play. However Dowse, who came to Lumpkin five years ago with a mission to “change the culture,” said he hopes his team can be an example for Lumpkin’s other programs looking to breakthrough.
“I’m super happy for them, but I hope this will spark something within our entire athletic program,” Dowse said. “When I got here, I had a lot of friends who I would call and say ‘should I take the Lumpkin job?’ and almost to a man they’d say ‘no, they don’t win’ and so I turned to my wife and she said ‘we’re going to Lumpkin, aren’t we?’ And I said ‘yes we are’ and here we are. We turned it around and I know that our other athletic programs can do the same. They just have to believe in each other and be willing to work for it, but I hope this sets a spark in the rest of our athletic department.”
While the Indians seemed to cruise through what Dowse intended to be one of the toughest schedules in the state and even through the state tournament final four, winning 27 straight games, with all but one coming by at least 10 points, heading into Friday’s championship match, Greater Atlanta Christian proved to be a worthy opponent in Lumpkin’s final test, battling the Indians to the very last second. Jones said that made the celebration that much sweeter.
“When you have to work for it and it’s not just a blowout, it’s so much fun,” she said.

WORK FOR IT

GAC took advantage of its experience in the season’s final game, finishing as the state runner up the previous two seasons, running out to a 11-2 start to the game that put the Indians behind early. Dowse said it was likely more to do with the opponents’ skill than his team’s nerves.
“I think some of it was [nervousness], but GAC’s really good,” he said. “Those kids can really play….We also had to figure out offensively for us, how were they going to guard us. I wasn’t surprised that they manned us up….Once we saw they were going to switch everything, we were able to take advantage with Kate a little bit early and run some of our sets that are designed to attack that.”
From there the Indians battled back, with back-to-back buckets by Jackson finishing off an 8-0 run in the final three minutes of the quarter that brought the score to 11-10. GAC then ended the quarter with a three, giving the Spartans a 14-10 lead.
With the teams trading runs, never letting the Indians out front, GAC went into fourth quarter on a 9-2 run that gave the Spartans a 40-32 lead that represented the Indians latest deficit in a game since November 23.
With their backs against the wall, the Indians came out on fire, scoring 14 unanswered points and completely flipping the script to go from down eight to up by six with the team’s first lead of the game coming with just over four minutes left. With each player having their moment throughout the game to get to this point, it was Averie Jones, who was held scoreless for much of the first half, who exploded on the scene when the season was on the line, scoring eight straight points in rapid succession to give the Indians the lead. After a technical free throw cashed in by Lexi Pierce gave the Indians a 47-42 lead with just over two minutes left, it seemed the Indians could cruise to victory.
However GAC battled back, tying the game at 47 with 47 seconds left thanks to some untimely turnovers, which helped create a Spartan run.
From there, it came down to Jackson, who missed last season’s playoff run with a torn ACL, who put the ball in the basket to give the Indians the lead for good with 16.3 seconds left. After forcing a turnover with 6.3 seconds left, all the Indians had left between them and the state championship trophy was a successful inbound pass. However with the Spartan defense draped over the baseline, even that became dramatic as sophomore Ava Jones was forced to fling the ball three-quarters of the court in football-pass fashion, finding Mullinax who leapt up to grab possession and made a break for the goal to run out the clock. Mullinax was fouled just before getting a shot off, sending her to the line where she made both shots to extend the lead to four, effectively starting the celebration. Just 3.9 seconds later, the team’s first state championship became official.

LOOKING AHEAD

“To see nine fighters like that who just lay it on the line every single game and believe in each other, that’s what it’s all about,” Dowse said. “That’s what it’s supposed to be all about and that’s what they’re all about.”
Averie said the support the team has received from the community throughout this run has been humbling.
“Looking up in the stands and seeing basically the whole Dahlonega population, that was insane,” Jones said. “It’s so cool that everybody was so behind us and supporting us and everything and we really appreciate it.”
And now with a state championship trophy back in Dahlonega, Mullinax was quick to point out a fact that will carry the Indians through the offseason as well as haunt the remainder of Class AAA.
“We’ll be back next year,” Mullinax said. “We’re only juniors, so we’ll be back.”