Promise kept
- Updated: February 22, 2023
MVP Austin keeps promise, leads Spring Garden girls past Skyline, back to Final Four after two-year absence; Panthers await semifinal opponent
By Joe Medley
East Alabama Sports Today
JACKSONVILLE — Ace Austin went from whipping passes behind her back to finishing promises Wednesday.
The sophomore Spring Garden phenom poured in 31 points and doled out nine assists, one with flair, as the Panthers downed Skyline 69-47 in the Northeast Regional final and a showdown of Class 1A’s Nos. 1 and 2-ranked teams.
The victory put top-ranked Spring Garden (35-1) in the Final Four. The Panthers will play Thursday’s Central Regional winner between A.L. Johnson and Loachapoka in the 1A state semifinals Monday at noon in Legacy Arena.
Spring Garden will go back to Birmingham for its first Final Four since 2020, when Austin helped the Panthers win their seventh state title as a seventh-grader.
A two-year bump up to Class 2A pitted the Panthers against Molly Heard-led Pisgah in the 2021 and 2022 Northeast Regional finals,
“It’s been too long since we’ve been there,” said Austin, the Northeast Regional MVP. “We took two Ls to Pisgah. I told you we wasn’t getting a third one, so … .”
Spring Garden got back to Birmingham by beating its pre-Pisgah nemesis, improving to 4-2 against Skyline at regional. The Panthers beat the Vikings in the 2017 and 2018 regional final and 2020 semifinals and lost to them in the 2014 semifinals and 2019 final.
The Panthers regularly make the Final Four, so it’s an unusual for players like Austin to go three years without it.
More unusual is Spring Garden having nearly half of a roster who never experienced a final four. Six of the 10 players listed on the Northeast Regional program roster — Austin, Kayley Kirk, Olivia Law, Avery Steward, Maggie Reedy and Maggie Jarrett — were on the varsity roster in 2020.
Reedy’s older sister Macy starred on that team.
Center Chloe Rule, who scored 16 points Wednesday and made the all-tournament team, transferred in from Hokes Bluff. All-tournament pick Libby Brown came in from Trion (Ga.) High School.
“It was a lot of work to get here, and I’ve never made it farther than subregion,” Rule said. “To make it to Birmingham for the first time, I wouldn’t be able to do it without the people on this team.”
That Spring Garden would return to Birmingham became evident in the second quarter Wednesday. Up 16-13 at the quarterback, the Panthers opened the second quarter with an 18-4 run and led 36-21 at halftime.
The gap swelled to 81-32 by the end of the third.
“I can’t lie about it,” Spring Garden coach Ricky Austin said. “We’ve been preparing for them for three or four weeks. We’ve been sliding things in practice here and there. I thought a lot of that preparing had us ready.
“We did a good job, defensively, recognizing their set plays. We didn’t give them many points off of their set plays. Points they did get were off broken plays, and I thought that was huge.”
Spring Garden used varsity boys left-hander Jon Marq Rodgers to simulate Skyline’s Kaina King in practice. Ace Austin held her to nine points.
“Ever since we started preparing, it was, ‘She’s all left-handed. Make her go right,’” Ace Austin said. “She’s going to head fake, but when she head fakes, she’s going left.
“I’ve been preparing for that for a few weeks.”
Along with preparation came a flash of talent in the third quarter. Ace Austin made the dribbling right on the break to draw the defender then whipped a pass behind her back to Rule for a layup and a 43-24 lead at 6:59 of the third.
She brought equal flair to the post game press conference, reminding Skyline fans of reported chants after the Vikings won the Jackson County tournament. The poke came after Ace Austin was asked if there was trash talk between regional rivals Wednesday.
“There wasn’t,” she said, “but if I was to say one thing, the one I would’ve said was, ‘You all got who you all wanted’.”
CLASS 1A NORTHEAST REGIONAL
GIRLS FINAL
SPRING GARDEN 69, SKYLINE 47
SKYLINE (29-5) – Brinlee Potts 2-6 4-5 8, Kenzie Manning 3-7 1-4 8, Kaina King 3-13 1-2 9, Lexie Stucky 7-8 2-4 16, Blakely Stucky 2-8 0-0 4, Audra Bellomy 0-2 2-2 2, Jaslynn Wilkinson 0-1 0-0 0. Totals 17-45 10-17 47.
SPRING GARDEN (35-1) – Ace Austin 11-25 7-8 31, Kayley Kirk 1-6 0-0 3, Chloe Rule 8-10 0-2 16, Libby Brown 3-11 0-2 9, Maggie Jarrett 3-5 0-0 8, Olivia Law 1-2 0-0 2, Kristen Lewis 0-2 0-0 0. Totals 27-61 7-12 69.
Skyline 13 8 11 15 – 47
Spring Garden 16 20 25 8 – 69
3-point goals: Skyline 3-16 (Potts 0-3, Manning 1-3, King 2-6, B.Stucky 0-3, Wilkinson 0-1); Spring Garden 8-12 (Austin 2-4, Kirk 1-6, Rule 0-1, Brown 3-11, Jarrett 2-4, Lewis 0-2). Total fouls: Skyline 16, Spring Garden 13. Fouled out: Potts, T.Tucker. Technical fouls: none. Officials: Smith, Walker, Baker.
All-tournament team: (Skyline) King, L.Stucky; (Spring Garden) Brown, Jarrett, Rule, Austin (MVP).
Cover photo: Ace Austin shoots her way to 31 points in an MVP performance as Spring Garden beat Skyline in Wednesday’s Northeast Regional finals. (Photo by Greg Warren)
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