‘Chill out’
- Updated: February 18, 2025
Spring Garden’s top-ranked girls allay coach’s nerves, solve second-ranked Ider in NE Regional final to punch ticket back to Birmingham.
By Shannon Fagan
WEIS Sports Director
JACKSONVILLE – In all his years of coaching basketball, Spring Garden’s Ricky Austin can always come up with something to use to his advantage against the opponent.
He said he could never find an advantage against second-ranked Ider ahead of their Class 1A Northeast Regional final Tuesday.
“That’s one of the best teams I’ve ever had to prepare for down here,” Austin said. “I’ve never watched as much game film on anybody as I have Ider.
“It started three weeks ago. I’d go to bed every night with my laptop watching Ider, and all the way up to today, I never could find an advantage. I just couldn’t find one.”
That led Austin to some uneasiness leading up to the top-ranked Panthers’ showdown with the Hornets at Pete Mathews Coliseum on Tuesday.
That uneasiness was something the Panthers sensed.
“Last night, I texted my brother (Riley) and said, ‘Daddy is so nervous about this game, and it’s making me mad,’” senior point guard Ace Austin said. “Today in the huddle, we all said, ‘Chill out. It’s OK. We’re going to be fine.’”
Ace’s and her teammates’ intuition proved to be just fine.
Even hobbled with a bad right ankle, Ace, the tournament’s Most Valuable Player, tossed in a game-high 28 points. She also grabbed nine rebounds, had four assists, three steals and two blocks in leading the Panthers back to Birmingham with a 62-51 victory.
Spring Garden (35-1) will take on Central Regional champion R.C. Hatch in the Final Four on Monday at noon at the Birmingham-Jefferson Convention Complex’s Legacy Arena. R.C. Hatch defeated Francis Marion 50-39 in the Central Regional final.
“Today at shootaround, several girls told me, ‘Coach, just relax. We’ve got this,’” Coach Austin said. “We talked about being gritty and tough and doing what Spring Garden girls do.”
What Spring Garden did against Ider was set and maintain the tone throughout Tuesday’s regional final. The Panthers built a 26-17 advantage at the end of the first quarter and held a 40-32 edge at halftime.
The Hornets (28-5) weren’t easily swatted away. They cut Spring Garden’s lead to 44-42 with 3:46 remaining in the third quarter, following a 3-pointer by Addisyn Heard.
Just 22 seconds later, Ace aggravated her ankle on a contested offensive rebound. She hit the floor and laid there for a few seconds, which led to Coach Austin calling a timeout.
“I might’ve give a doubletake to make sure she was all right, but we saw teeth, and we were happy,” Coach Austin said. “She was laying there trying to get up. I knew she was fine. She was smiling.
“I think her and Maleaha (Mavity) got tied up, and she came down on it,” Ider coach Jamie Pruitt said. “She’s a competitor. I text Rat (Coach Austin) and Dana (Austin) the other day after their game with Winterboro and told them, ‘I hope she’s healthy.’ I want to play them when she’s healthy. I didn’t want an asterisk if we were to win.
“That was one of the guttiest performances I saw the other night against Winterboro. Most kids would’ve gone out and not come back in honestly, but she gutted it out. I’d say she was probably 80 or 90 percent. I don’t think she was 100 for sure, but our mindset was we were expecting Ace to be 100 percent.”
Following that mild scare and timeout, Spring Garden closed out the third quarter on a 6-2 spurt to take a 50-44 lead into the fourth. ThePanthers outscored Ider 12-7 in the fourth for the final.
“We didn’t know what Ace could do (coming into Tuesday’s game),” Coach Austin said. “When you’ve got a pretty Corvette, it looks good, but when the engine might be sputtering a little bit, you can’t go full throttle. We went just fast enough to get away. We know we can play faster, but we were just fast enough to get away.”
And on to another Final Four path.
Maggie Jarrett added 10 points, six rebounds and three assists for the Panthers. Olivia Law collected eight points, eight boards, two assists and a steal. Montana Highfield had a pair of 3-pointers and also had eight points with six rebounds. Kristen Lewis finished with five points.
Jarrett and Law joined Ace as Spring Garden all-tournament team selections.
Ider’s Makinley Traylor topped Ider with 15 points and five assists. Mavity managed 12 points. Cambree Chapman finished with nine points and nine boards. All three Ider players were all-tournament selections.
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