SPARTANBURG – Three days after storming past Clover 56-39 at home Friday night, the Blythewood girls basketball team hit the road to Dorman Monday night and upset the Cavaliers 54-52 to reach the upper state finals for the second straight year.
Blythewood (22-5), the defending 5A Division 1 champion, opened the playoffs with a No.4 seeding and a first-round bye. The Bengals led top-seeded Dorman (21-5) 33-21 at halftime thanks to a 22-point second quarter. They held a 47-37 lead going into the fourth quarter where the Cavaliers cut the lead to 54-52 in the final minute. Dorman held possession but turned the ball over, and Blythewood clinched the win.
Chase Thomas led the Bengals with 22 points and India Williams put up 13 points against the Cavaliers.
Blythewood plays No. 2 Mauldin (22-3) for the 5A Division 1 upper state championship at Newberry High School Friday at 7 p.m.
After beating a scrappy Clover team by 17 points Friday, head coach Emily McElveen-Schaeffer credited her team’s toughness in fighting for the win.
“Like I’ve said before, it’s come down to who plays hard,” Schaeffer said about the teams in the brackets. “Every team alive is good, so it’s going to come down to who plays the hardest. We’ve been preaching to our girls all week that you’ve got to want it more.”
The fifth-seeded Blue Eagles (17-8) came out fighting Friday, frustrating the Bengals’ attempts to get in the lane and even stifling Blythewood’s 3-point shooting. The Bengals made two 3s in the first quarter—and abandoned their offense from behind the 3-point arc for the rest of the game.
Instead, Blythewood persisted in driving inside.
After fighting to a 16-13 lead at first quarter’s end, Thomas, Williams, Kirsten Fulton and Kaila Spain helped the team to a 28-19 lead at the half.
Thomas kicked off the third quarter with back-to-back baskets that triggered the Bengals 13-0 rn that gave them a 41-19 lead by the 4:09 mark of the third.
“I was trying to be aggressive and to take what they give me, go to the basket if I can, shoot if I can’t pass to my teammates open,” Thomas said. “It was definitely a physical game, I just kept my composure. Fans were talking to me, but I just stayed in my game, just trying to get every rebound that came off the rim, and we just played as a team.”
Thomas finished the night with 20 points and 12 rebounds. Williams had 11 points.
For those used to seeing 3-bombs rain down on opponents, Friday’s effort reminded fans that Blythewood can indeed rustle up points from inside.
“We have to get the points where we can get them,” Schaeffer said. “We like to shoot (3s) but if we can get them in the paint, we’ll take them however way we can get them.”
Coach McElveen-Schaeffer noted that “this is not how we normally play. We’re not this much of a physical team.” She added that the team’s regular-season finale loss to Ridge View as well as “Ridge View was a physical game and Clover was a physical game, so it shows our girls that we can play like that.”
Thomas, voted Region 5-5A Player of the Year for the fourth straight year, earned Class 5A Co-Player of the Year along with Dorman’s Morgan White. Williams made 5A All State team. Thomas, Williams and Fulton made the All-Region team.
Thomas, who signed with South Carolina State, leads the team with a 22.1-point scoring average on top of 11.5 rebounds, 3.8 assists, and 2.2 steals per game.
Williams, who signed with USC-Aiken, has a 14.3 scoring average with 4.1 rebounds, 3.5 assists per game.
Hayley Hightower, the team’s veteran point guard who averaged 6.6 points, 3.5 assists, and 3.4 steals per game, signed to run track and cross country for Purdue.
Clover – 13-6-6-14 — 39
Blythewood – 16-12-19-11 — 56
Clover
Akayla Richards 10, Powell 8, Smith 6, Ja. Chambliss 6, Ju. Chambliss 4, Pearson 2, Williams 2, McIlwain 1.
Blythewood
Chase Thomas 20, India Williams 11, Fulton 7, M. Thomas 6, Spain 4, Hightower 2, Stovall 2, Anderson 2, Guerrero 2.
BLYTHEWOOD – 11-22-14-7 — 54
DORMAN – 10-11-16-15 — 56
BLYTHEWOOD
Chase Thomas 22, India Williams 13
