Both top-ranked Bishop McGuinness teams breezed through the first and second rounds of the 1A basketball tournament, but Tuesday’s third round posed a more difficult challenge.
Though neither team trailed beyond the first few minutes of the game, their opponents stayed within striking distance — a marked departure from the rivals blown out by 25 or 50 points in the earlier rounds.
The Lady Villains faced No. 9 seed Queen’s Grant High School from Matthews. Bishop fought to contain two all-star guards who average 31 and 22 points a game, respectively.
“It’s pick your poison … we can’t let both of them go for 30,” said head coach Brian Robinson when asked about his defensive plan going into the game. “Let number 5 have hers. … We did a decent job controlling number 3.”
Three-pointers filled the fast-paced first half — Adelaide Jernigan would finish 7 for 13 from behind the arc for 21 of her 33 total points, and freshman Maddie Taylor hit three of her own.
Bishop led 39-27 at halftime.
Queen’s Grant came out fired up to start the third quarter and eventually cut Bishop’s lead to nine, but the Lady Villains stayed composed and pulled away in the fourth quarter, defeating Queen’s Grant 74-56. They move on to face No. 5 seed Mountain Heritage High School Friday at home in Bishop’s sixth straight Elite Eight appearance.
“Getting this deep in the season doesn’t get old for us because it’s something we set our minds on in the beginning of the season,” Robinson told Scope News. “We feel very privileged to be moving on to the Elite Eight.”
The men’s team hosted No. 9 seed North Rowan High School in a gym packed full of rowdy fans. North Rowan plays at a high velocity: The first quarter was a game of fast breaks with Bishop ultimately leading 26-20.
“We knew that they were going to come out playing that way. We didn’t want to necessarily match the pace, but we wanted to pick and choose the times that we played at their pace,” head coach Josh Thompson told Scope News. “We probably ran a little more in the first half than we wanted to, but fortunately we were able to convert those into baskets.”
Up 44-35 at halftime, some trouble came in the third quarter when North Rowan’s full-court press forced several Bishop turnovers.
The Villains swapped in Nicholas Graves to take the ball out of bounds and get it in to a bigger player. It worked to break the press and set up a favorable two-on-one matchup in the front court.
Still, North Rowan’s drives to the basket could not be stopped and Bishop only led by six points with 6:08 to go in the fourth quarter.
Big scores from Thomas Thompson (who finished with 24 points and eight rebounds), Alex Waterfield (21 points, eight rebounds), and Nicholas Graves (22 points, 10 rebounds, 10 assists) sealed the deal for Bishop. They won 90-76.
Nicholas Graves’ triple double included scoring the 1,000th point of his high school career.
“For about the last three weeks, he’s had a different look in his eye. We’ve talked about everybody getting on the bus in the playoffs and Nick is the driver of that bus and he’s really taken that to heart,” says Thompson. “He’s had a winner’s mentality since he began playing basketball, but he’s been in a different mode the last three weeks.”
Bishop McGuinness will face No. 5 seed Corvian Community High School in the Elite Eight on Friday at home.
Check out highlights and photos from the games on our Instagram account.
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