‘Counted out’
- Updated: January 19, 2023
Perennial county power Anniston overcomes Crook’s 32 points to get by Ohatchee, reach county final for the seventh year in a row
By Joe Medley
East Alabama Sports Today
JACKSONVILLE – Anniston’s girls have won 21 Calhoun County basketball championships, so feeling like underdogs is, well, a weird feeling.
“Everybody counted us out,” junior forward Tykeria Smith said. “I’m just glad that we made it back to where we are now.”
Smith poured in 29 points to nearly match the 32 from Ohatchee’s Jorda Crook, and No. 2 seed Anniston held off the third-seeded Indians 50-45 in Thursday’s semifinals.
The Bulldogs earned a shot at top seed and defending champion Oxford in Friday’s 6 p.m. title game.
Anniston had won the tournament five years in a row before Oxford claimed its first county trophy since 2006 last year. The Yellow Jackets went on to make their first Final Four appearance and finished as Class 6A runner-up.
Anniston is in year two after two-time Alabama Sports Writers Association Class 4A player of the year Allasha Dudley, who spearheaded teams that made three consecutive Final Fours and won the program’s first-ever state title in 2020.
Making matters more challenging, the Bulldogs lost junior guard Serena Hardy to a season-ending knee injury in the fifth game.
Anniston still carried the No. 2 seed into this year’s county tournament, but it was no certainty the Bulldogs would get past Crook, the county’s most dominant player, in the semifinals.
Crook’s performance Thursday gave her 234 points in eight career county-tourney games. She scored a record 49 against Jacksonville on Wednesday.
Anniston came determined to surround Crook and made it hard for her to get the ball. The game plan didn’t work as well as Anniston coach Eddie Bullock had hoped.
“She’s going to score because she’s a great player, but I think she got 10 points off of offensive rebounds, and then she probably got another 10 off of straight-line drives to the basket,” he said. “Those were the two things we wanted to take away.”
Good thing Anniston had Smith to offset the Ohatchee standout who has scored 2,700 career points, four fewer than Spring Garden’s Paige Anderson in 29th place on the state’s all-time scoring list, according to AHSAA records.
Smith “finally did what I told her she was capable of doing,” Bullock said. “Not just because I told her, but I’ve been on her the last two years. She stepped up. She stepped up big time. …
“I tell her, ‘Look, you are just as good as anybody out there. You’ve just got to step up and show them what you’re capable of doing.’”
Anniston also got 12 points from A’Kayla Perry and forced 27 turnovers.
“I thought we handled the press fine,” Ohatchee coach Bryant Ginn said. “A lot of them came in the halfcourt.
“From our standpoint, we tried to throw it to (Crook) too much. They were putting two and three on her, and we’ve just got to trust ourselves a little bit more and take some more shots.”
OHATCHEE – Whitney McFry 1 0-1 3, Kiana Garber 1 0-0 2, Jorda Crook 13 5-8 32, Lindsey Zurchin 2 0-0 6, Alyssa Davis 1 0-0 2. Totals 18 5-9 45.
ANNISTON – Layla Tyus 3 1-2 7, A’Kayla Perry 5 0-1 12, Jada Fomby 0 1-3 1, Tykeria Smith 11 7-9 29, Kiara Thomas 0 1-4 1. Totals 19 10-19 50.
| Ohatchee | 11 | 13 | 10 | 11 – | 45 |
| Anniston | 9 | 14 | 15 | 10 – | 50 |
3-point goals: Ohatchee 4 (Zurchin 2, Crook, McFry); Anniston 2 (Perry 2). Fouled out: McFry. Total fouls: Ohatchee 14 Anniston 15. Officials: Larkins, Zauchin, Carley.
Cover photo: Ohatchee’s Jorda Crook goes up with a host of Anniston defenders around her during their Calhoun County semifinal Thursday in Pete Mathews Coliseum.
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