Champs on repeat: Ridge View bounces Blythewood to win latest basketball state title
Ridge View boys basketball’s dominance continues, this time at the expense of its in-town rival.
The Blazers defeated fellow Richland 2 district school Blythewood on Friday, 71-47, to win South Carolina’s Class 5A Division I championship at the Florence Center.
It’s Ridge View’s second-straight championship and sixth title in the last eight years — and part of their rise as one of the premier programs in the state.
The win was the Blazers’ 16th straight over the rival Bengals, with three coming this season. Ridge View defeated Blythewood twice in region play and finished the season on a 17-game winning streak.
The Blazers (23-7) didn’t lose to an in-state opponent all season.
“It is humbling,” Ridge View coach Joshua Staley said, “because success isn’t something that is guaranteed. All you can do is bust your tail and work as hard as you can and live with the results. When you have an opportunity to be successful, you’ve got to be extremely humble and be grateful to God and be ready to put some more work back in.”
Staley tried to keep his team humble this week leading up to the title game, asking his players to put the recent success over Blythewood in the rear-view mirror.
“We didn’t talk about the score or the success,” he said. “We talked about the things they beat us at and things they took advantage of, and it worked out for us tonight.”
Junior Korie Corbett led the Blazers with 23 points and bounced back from a sub-par performance in the semifinals. The Class 5A Player of the Year was held to just six points last week against James Island but was aggressive from the start of Friday’s game.
Corbett scored 14 of his 23 in the second half as the Blazers pulled away. He had a pair of dunks in the second half, the second one bringing the Ridge View fans to their feet.
“My coaches and teammates have confidence in me and are always lifting me up, so I knew I was going to bounce back the next game,” Corbett said. “... We were ready for the moment. We already played them two times, so we knew we had to come out and handle business.”
Guard Yale Davis added 13 points, while Malachi Cooper had nine and Tal Staley had eight off the bench, all in the first half. Staley hit a couple of big 3-pointers in the first half as Ridge View jumped out 15-9 and then led 30-20 at halftime.
The Bengals got the deficit under 10 points only once in the second half at 40-31 before the Blazers answered with a 6-0 run, all by Corbett and Davis, to lead 46-31 after three quarters.
The Blazers shot 52% from the field and held the Bengals to 31%. The Bengals’ 47 points were their lowest point total since being held to 48 last year against Fort Mill.
The loss ends the Bengals’ season at 23-6. Blythewood was looking to sweep both championships, with the girls defeating Summerville earlier in the evening for the program’s first title.
“It means a lot considering what we had to face to get here. If I describe it to you, you wouldn’t believe it,” Blythewood coach Zeke Washington said. “It means a lot that we fought through a lot of things to make it to this point. We appreciate the support everybody gave us and we wish we could have won it for them, but it just didn’t happen this time.
“I’m proud of my guys to fight through everything they went through to get here.”
Blythewood was making its second championship appearance after losing to Dorman in 2017. The Bengals advanced to Friday’s championship game by knocking off Dorman last week with a come-from-behind victory.
Just like in the last meeting, the Blazers did a good job containing Blythewood leading scorer TJ Lewis. Ridge View rotated four different defenders on the all-state selection, making it tough for him to get into a shooting rhythm.
Lewis finished with 17 points, but much of that was with the game already in hand.
RV: Korie Corbett 23, Yale Davis 13, Cooper 9, Staley 8, Wylie 7, B. Mack 5, R. Mack 3, VanKallen 2, Smith 1. B: TJ Lewis 17, Stephens 6, Sims 6, Jones 5, Little 5, Mack 4, Major 2, Bandini 2.
This story was originally published March 7, 2025 at 11:02 PM.
