Spring Valley girls repeat as 4A champions

Right now.

That was the motto on the court, and it turned out to be a good one for Spring Valley. Christian Hithe scored 26 points to lead Spring Valley to its second straight state championship with a 49-40 victory over Sumter on Friday night for the Class 4A girls basketball championship.

It puts coach Anne Long in the record books with her eighth state title. She’s won four with the Vikings since 2009, and won four titles with Union County from 1984-1989.

“They’re all very special and very unique,” Long said. “This group of seniors came up from the jv program and that doesn’t happen a lot. They came through our system and the demands we ask of them, and to experience this state championship and make history at Spring Valley to get back-to-backs.”

Hithe, who transferred from Sumter, capped her high school career with her second state championship in as many years with the Vikings. She scored her 1,000th point for Spring Valley in the second quarter, and finished with six steals and four rebounds.

“We got a ‘W’ with a wonderful group of girls,” Hithe said. “I love them and I love Coach Long. It’s going to be really sad in our locker room because we know we have to go our own ways. I’m so glad for everything that happened though.”

It looked like Spring Valley would run away with things in the first half. The Vikings led by as many as 15 points and led 29-17 at the half. But Sumter slowly chipped away, and when Kyra Wilson hit a 3-pointer, it brought the Gamecocks within 33-28 late in the third quarter.

That’s when Hithe and the rest of the Vikings seniors decided it was now or never. Or right now.

Hithe hit a 3-pointer to push the lead back to eight, and the lead was 36-30 going into the final quarter.

The Vikings forced four turnovers on Sumter’s first six fourth quarter possessions, and Hithe scored five straight points to Spring Valley to make it 42-33. The Gamecocks wouldn’t get any closer than six points the rest of the way.

“All we kept saying is ‘right now,’ ” Hithe said. “This is our senior year and it had to start. Every moment was our right now and if our right now was going to be later, we would have the sad faces. We just knew we had to keep our defense up and get turnovers.”

Hithe knew she was going to have a big game before it started. She said nerves were never a factor.

“I usually get butterflies, but I didn’t get any butterflies,” Hithe said. “I knew I was going to have a good game.”

Long decided to put the game into the hands of her seniors at that point.

“We had some turnovers we shouldn’t have had,” she said. “The main thing is they held it together in the fourth quarter. I started using the clock a little early and that was a gamble, but I had confidence in the seniors.”

Long probably was very complimentary of her team afterwards. She’s had teams that had several Division I prospects and has Hithe going to Central Florida and Shantay Taylor, who finished with 10 points and seven rebounds, signed with Temple.

But with seven seniors that came up through the system, they capped the season the best way they could.

“Coach (Doretha) Garland said everybody is a piece of the puzzle and we had to have everybody,” Long said. “That was the truth all season for us. We made some runs and played really nice basketball together. I told them I would even buy a ticket to see them play and I don’t say that much about my teams.”

Kyra Wilson led Sumter with 21 points.

SV: Christian Hithe 26, Shantay Taylor 10, Hill 4, Lewis 4, Matthews 3, Jones 2. S: Kyra Wilson 21, Harris 5, Cooper 4, Abram 4, Tyler 2, McBride 2, Jones 2.

This story was originally published March 4, 2016 at 8:51 PM.