May River girls’ magical season ends in Class 3A Lower State championship
The best season in May River short girls basketball history came to an end Saturday afternoon in the Class 3A lower state championship. Marion jumped on top early and rolled to a 54-40 victory at the Florence Civic Center, securing the Swamp Foxes a spot in the state championship for the first time since 2009.
Marion will play Keenan next Saturday at 2 p.m. at the Colonial Life Arena in Columbia.
May River (19-7) surprised many by getting this far with close victories over Dillon and Manning in the second and third rounds respectively. But the run came to an end against an experienced Swamp Foxes team.
The Sharks started building to this point when they opened and six seniors on the team have been there every step of the way.
“I think this group is a special group as far as this is the fourth year of our school’s history,” May River coach Jermaine Bigham said. “We’ve built with this group since they were freshmen and we have six seniors on this team now and this was the goal we had set when they came in. We made it the final four so that’s not a bad accomplishment. I’m proud of them and they deserved to be here.”
Marion (29-1) led 10-9 after one quarter, 18-14 in the middle of the second quarter and extended that lead to 26-20 by halftime. The biggest lead of the third quarter came with the Swamp Foxes holding a 33-22 lead at the midway point but the Sharks closed the deficit to 35-28 to end the third quarter.
Jordan Bigham got the Sharks within five, 37-32, early in the final period but Marion scored the next four points to begin a 15-2 run and it never got closer the rest of the way. The Sharks went nearly four minutes and only scored two points.
“Marion had a big team and our main rotation is six or seven players,” Bigham said. “They had a solid group of guards that were quicker and faster, so it got to a point where they wore us down a little bit. We threw a couple of bad passes and took shots that we don’t take but it had a lot to do with Marion.”
Kimbrie’l Barnes scored 15 points to lead Marion. Keyla Britt chipped in with 14 points. Bigham, a junior post player, led May river with 16 points with senior Gracyn Drury adding eight points.
Marion - Kimbrie’l Barnes 15, Keyla Britt 14, Allen 2, Moody 8, Howard 2, K. Davis 1, Lester 9, P. Davis 1, Rogers 2. May River – Jordan Bigham 16, E. Peluso 6, Drury 8, Sneed 7, O. Peluso 2, Scott 1.
This story was originally published February 29, 2020 at 4:30 PM.