BY TIM GAYLE
SPORTS – ELMORE/AUTAUGA NEWS
Top Photo: Prattville’s Macayla Hines’ shot blocked by Auburn’s Kelsi Andrews
Prattville coach Erica Dubois knew her team had an obstacle in facing a taller Auburn High team on Wednesday in the Southeast Regionals, but it’s not something the Lions haven’t seen before.
“We’ve always been the team that doesn’t have the same amount of athletes that everybody else has that we play,” she said. “The main thing you tell them is to play our brand of basketball, play hard, play gritty, go after the ball.”
For a quarter, that worked well, but gradually Kelsi Andrews took charge of the game, recording a triple-double on the way to the Tigers’ 61-37 win over the Lions at Garrett Coliseum.
“Last year, when I was in Mississippi, I got a double-double but I could never break my record with the 10 blocks and I finally did that,” said the 6-foot-4 center. “It’s exciting.”
Andrews finished with 15 points, 10 rebounds and 13 blocked shots. Not a bad performance for an eighth grader.
“Every time she touches the ball, we tried to double down on her,” Dubois said. “She’s a phenomenal athlete. I told my girls to just be physical. The most you can do is be physical and hopefully get in her head. Even with DeJaria (Lewis) being outmatched, for the most part she held her own.”
Auburn (19-6) advances to the Southeast Regional finals, while Prattville ends the season at 13-10.
“They came out pretty strong,” Auburn coach Courtney Pritchett said of his opponent. “We came out in ‘man’ and they took advantage of it. They got to the basket and got to the free-throw line. We had to end up going back to a zone and we knew in the zone it would help us rebound a little better.”
The Lions actually had the edge (43-39) in rebounding, in part because of the performance of Lewis, who had 13 points and 16 rebounds. But the second and third shots didn’t help much as Andrews asserted her presence in the second quarter as the Tigers used a 17-7 run to take an 11-point lead at the half.
“At the beginning I was frustrated,” she said. “The first quarter, we were kind of rocky and I thought the game was going to be close. When I finally started communicating and getting us together, we finally picked our energy up.”
Her 13 blocks were the most impressive part of the game as she altered virtually every Prattville offensive possession in the final three quarters.
“I told (the guards) to go to the step-back,” Dubois said, “and (U‘llyriah Lewis) knocked down a couple of jump shots on her (to finish with 12 points). My post players, I’ve been trying to teach them how to shield to draw that foul. But I’ll never tell them to back down. If she blocks it, go back up and get it. We want to give her the fight of her life.”
Andrews had more weapons on her side. Her older sister Carleigh, a senior, also had 15 points along with six assists, while Syriah Daniels led all scorers with 16 points.
The loss may have been disappointing, but it didn’t diminish the job accomplished by Dubois, who pointed at last year’s five-win season as the beginning of the Prattville High rebuilding effort.
“We were losing by three or five (points in games last season), but if you looked at the record, it was still, ‘Oh, it’s the same old Prattville Lady Lions,”’ Dubois said. “To be honest, this season has been extremely fun, it’s shocking. I expected it but my girls always say my expectations are so high. The amount of work I put them through in the summertime, I knew they could do it. I actually feel like they should still be going on because they showed me their best brand of basketball maybe twice.”
That was the message she delivered to the players in the locker room after the game.
“You guys were the first group to set this foundation,” she said. “Now that the foundation has come, I put all my freshmen in the game tonight just so they can get a feel. These are the expectations from here on because there’s never been a thought for the Prattville girls’ team to make it past the area. So, I let them know you’ve changed the culture. It’s up from here. We’re not jersey wearers, we are here to compete.”
