By By BRUCE HIXON Sports Editor
T.R. Miller Lady Tigers sophomore Joy McCorvey and senior Ashley Samuel landed spots on the Class 3A All-State Tournament Team Friday.
McCorvey and Samuel were joined the squad by Lauderdale County's Emily Mason, Abbeville's Zsaquez Flucker and Krystal Hulls. Abbeville's Robin Porter was named Most Valuable Player.
McCorvey fell one point shy of leading the Class 3A field in scoring at the state tournament with 34 points (Abbeville's Hulls had 35). McCorvey did lead all players in steals with seven. She was third in field goal percentage (48 percent), fifth in rebounds with 15 and seocnd in blocked shots with four.
Samuel was fourth in scoring with 28 points, fourth in field goals made with 11, fourth in steals with four and third in rebounds with 21.
Although she did not make the all-tournament team, T.R. Miller sophomore Jasmine Sanford led the Class 3A in free throw percentage at 71 percent.
Friday's state tournament championship marked the final high school game for Samuel. Samuel finished as T.R. Miller's second all-time career scoring leader with 2,197 points. That puts her in 25th place on the state list.
"I'm proud that we were able to get to state in three of my four years in high school and we won it my sophomore year (2001-02)," Samuel said.
McCorvey passed Valerie Etheridge for fourth place on T.R. Miller's career scoring list at the state tournament. Etheridge had 1,015 points. McCorvey now has 1,040.
McCorvey passed six players (Etheridge, Andrea Ward, Taylor DeFrancisco, Adriane Johnson, CeCe Jolly and Tiffany Richardson) on the scoring list this season.
However, McCorvey's next target is quite distant. That would be Felicia Jackson with 1,911 points.
An interesting tidbit about Abbeville, the team that beat T.R. Miller in the state championship game, is the Lady Yellow Jackets have played every game the last two years on the road due to construction of a new gym.
"It's been very tough. We've had to travel 28 miles one way just to practice. We've got one more year of being on the road before we finally get to play at home," Abbeville coach Darryl Brooks said.
T.R. Miller did not get a single bench point during its two state tournament games. Then again, all five starters played all 32 minutes. Of those five, only McCorvey, Samuel and Sanford scored.
"Even though the other starters (Krystle Smith and Keonshaye Lane) didn't score, they contributed in other ways, especially on defense," T.R. Miller coach Ron Jackson said.
The eight-point deficit T.R. Miller had late in the third quarter was its second largest of the season. It had a 16-point deficit after one quarter against Selma at the Greenville Tournament.
My perfect streak with the Lady Tigers is over. T.R. Miller was a perfect 27-0 in games I attended and 2-2 without me prior to the Friday's loss.
Like most states, the Alabama State Tournament has an extra attraction with a three-point shot and slam dunk competition. The Class 3A boys three-point shot competition was held at half-time of the T.R. Miller-Abbeville game.
I think every coach would agree there should not be a qualifying rounds for dunks, but a lot of states have qualifying rounds for the three-point contest.
In Illinois, each school gets four shooters at the start of postseason.
Eight shooters will compete prior to each game (usually 50 minutes prior to the game in order to have plenty of time to have the competition and still allow players to get ready for the game).
The top four shooters will advance to the next round to take on four more shooters from another site. All ties for the last qualifying spot are broken. The qualifying shooters advance to the location where their team is
competing (or would be competing if it were still alive).
Alabama could take 16 shooters (four from each regional site) per class to the state tournament.
At state, have a competition to determine each class state champion. Then have a final competition between the six class state champions for King or Queen of the Hill.
To me, this kind of competition seems a lot more meaningful than the current Alabama version where a small group of players are chosen to compete without any pre-state qualifying rounds.
Just like teams, individual players should have to earn their way to state for competition such as the three-point shot.
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The Brewton Youth Football Association will meet March 22-23 at 6 p.m. at the Brewton Public Library.
Board members will be elected for the 2004 season.
Parents who wish to become board members or have children who are interested in playing or cheering next season are encouraged
See BITS Page 7A
to attend.
The league is for players age six to 13.
Former T.R. Miller Tiger footbal player Will Fountain has been selected to play in the National All-Stars.com Bowl.
Fountain will represent the University of Alabama in the game, which will be played at University Stadium in Orlando March 20 at 7 p.m.