Keenan girls top Southside to set up all-Midlands state championship game
It will be an all-Midlands final for the Class 3A girls high school basketball championship.
Keenan did its part to get to the title game with a 62-52 win over Southside on Monday in the Class 3A Upper State championship.
The Raiders will play Camden on Friday in the state title game at 6 p.m. Friday at the USC Aiken Convocation Center. The Bulldogs defeated powerhouse Bishop England on Monday to win the Lower State championship in Florence.
Keenan is going for its third straight state title, while Camden is in the finals for the first time since 1982.
“It is going to be an exciting matchup everyone wants to see,” Keenan girls coach Reggie McLain said. “You got two top players in the country, two top teams in South Carolina. Hope it will be a good game.”
The two teams last played in the 2019-20 season when Keenan and Camden were in the same region. Keenan won both games that year, with South Carolina women’s basketball coach Dawn Staley in the crowd for one contest.
The state title game will feature two of the top players in the country in Keenan’s MiLaysia Fulwiley and Camden’s Joyce Edwards. Edwards is the No. 1 ranked player in the Class of 2024, according to ESPN HoopGurlz, while Fulwiley is No. 7 in the Class of 2023. Both have several Division I offers, including from top-ranked South Carolina.
Fulwiley and Edwards have played on the same AAU teams — the SC 76ers and FBC United — during the summer and are good friends.
“Once we get on the court, we will keep the friends stuff off the court and do what we do best — play the game of basketball,” Fulwiley said. “It is definitely going to be a tough matchup for me and my team, but I feel like we are going to come out on top because we are ready.”
Fulwiley was her usual self against Southside on Monday, scoring 25 of her game-high 37 points in the first half as the Raiders led 35-21 at halftime.
Southside made a couple of runs in the second half and got within 58-52 with 1:58 left. But the Raiders were able to put the game away at the free-throw line, something they struggled with in the third round against Blue Ridge, to earn their sixth state championship appearance in the last seven years.
“I was just telling the team: Keep your composure, don’t throw up crazy shots and execute,” Fulwiley said. “... I feel like this group is very special. We’ve got a lot of chemistry and we built this. It didn’t come overnight. We built this, and every time we go on the court we know exactly what we are supposed to do.”
K: MiLaysia Fulwiley 37, Greene 2, Griffin 4, Lewis 5, Price 4, Johnson 4, Oree 6. S: Lorick 11, Blassingame 4, Young 3, Thompson 18, Evans 6, Nolan 10.
This story was originally published February 28, 2022 at 7:18 PM.
