With Alajiah Ragland drawing two quick fouls in the first quarter, Alexis Henderson knew something had to be done.
“I just felt like I needed to help since Alajiah was the leading scorer on our team, I just felt like I needed to help out,” Henderson said.
Henderson stepped up nicely, hitting two first quarter 3-pointers, and making plays all over the court as Charlottesville beat Liberty Christian 44-42 in the Conference 23 semifinals, securing a Region 4A North tournament berth and a spot in the conference championship game.
“She was everywhere, I really thought it was one of her most complete games,” said Charlottesville coach Jim Daly.
Liberty Christian whittled away at the Black Knights’ lead during the fourth quarter, closing a 37-32 gap down to nothing at 40-40. But Charlottesville answered, taking a 42-40 lead with about a minute to play. From there, the Bulldogs couldn’t get over the hump as Charlottesville created enough turnovers and overcame a 3-for-11 quarter at the charity stripe to hold off LCA.
Each little play that Charlottesville played seemed to add up and prevent LCA from building some serious momentum.
“I thought we got a couple of hustle plays early on, tips and steals and we were able to generate some transition buckets,” Daly said. “There were so many hustle plays like Destinee (McDonald) saved a couple of lay-ups by getting back, Alexis had a couple of rebounds and that good decision in transition.”
The Black Knights also got a huge lift from McDonald who, as usual, didn’t get much of a break as she played essentially every second of the game and finished with 10 points. Ragland shook off those two early fouls and finished with a team-high 14 points.
“We said before the game it was going to be a battle,” Daly said. “I’ve seen LCA play a few times, they’re really well coached and they execute really well. To be honest, I was so scared of their man offense and how well they run it that we played so much zone. They’re not your average four-seed.”
Kayla Smith finished with 24 points for the Bulldogs to lead the way for LCA. Abby Ridout hit a huge 3-pointer for the Bulldogs in the fourth quarter to help LCA keep pace with Charlottesville.
The Black Knights will turn around Friday to face G.W. Danville for the Conference 23 title at 7 p.m. at Charlottesville.
