Showtime at the Glass House

Lady Mountaineers deliver historic championship

By Stefan Cooper
Editor
Blount Press Row

For half a second, we thought: Maybe they’ll stop the tournament.

It wouldn’t be fair to ask Heritage, making the school’s first state championship game appearance, to continue on without Carsyn Swaney.

It wouldn’t be right.

Of course the BlueCross Championships Class 3A title game would go on as scheduled last Saturday at Middle Tennessee State University in Murfreesboro. The Lady Mountaineer training staff did everything it could to get Swaney, a Miss Basketball finalist, able to go, but the swelling in the MTSU signee’s left ankle, the result of a hairline fracture suffered in the previous day’s semifinal, was just too great.

“I’ll be honest with you. It was devastating seeing her like that,” Heritage coach Rick Howard said. “Not just for the team, but for her. She’s such a great young lady.”

Swaney was defiant overnight.

“Our athletic trainer, she did everything she could to get my swelling down,” she said. “I put brown paper bags and vinegar on my ankle to try to make the swelling go down, but it wouldn’t go down. It was just horrible the next day.

“Before the game I tried running, but I just couldn’t. My ankle was popping in and out. Telling my friends I wouldn’t be able to play and be by their side was heartbreaking.”

Swaney, only the second player in school history to surpass 2,000 points in a career, was, understandably, a huge part of the Lady Mountaineer offense. She erupted for a game-high 28 in Thursday’s quarterfinal opener. Heritage, which finished a school-record 35-2 this season, could still score, though.

“I said, ‘Let’s all come together and take that gold ball home where it belongs,'” Howard said.

Right away, he said, sophomore guard Kenley Coker answered in the affirmative.

“Kenley said, ‘Coach, we’re locked in. We’re going to win this thing,'” Howard said.

Chloe Heath is no joke. The Carson-Newman signee is not only one of the most athletic bigs you’ll come across in the high school game; from the arc, the school’s third all-time leading scorer is butter.

Junior forward Aleyah Smyth gives Heritage an edge defensively. She’s just fun to watch.

Sophomores Faith Morris, Katelyn Graves and Coker are no-fear shooters each. Heritage would face off against Northview Academy for the 3A crown with the ability to get plenty hot. It’s the other big thing Swaney gave the Lady Mountaineers that concerned us: She was the point guard. Who was going to handle the ball?

And then it hit us.

If there was a single, defining element for the Heritage girls basketball team the last two years, something we wanted any video of this season’s historic championship to reflect, it was the way these Lady Mountaineers passed the ball. They were really, really good at it, like few teams we’ve seen, and we’ve been at this a long time.

“When I saw Carsyn get hurt, it was really heartbreaking to me because I know how hard she’s worked, how much she wanted to play in the championship game,” Heath said. “I really was hoping it was a minor injury and she would get to play the next day.”

After Morris and Coker opened the championship game with back-to-back jumpers, you could see it coming. Heritage would be just fine, going on to rout Northview, 63-43, to claim Blount County’s first-ever championship in girls basketball in the full-court era, which began with the 1979-80 school year.

Heath delivered a virtuoso performance of 13 points and 16 rebounds in the championship game en route to being named the tournament’s most valuable player. After pouring in 21 in the quarterfinal win over Portland, Howard said he knew she would be key on Saturday. There would be few breaks.

“I said, ‘You’ve got to play out of your mind today,'” he said. “She said, ‘Leave me out there. I’m just going to play.'”

The Lady Mountaineers had an edge when it came to making sure their legs were fresh for the championship game, Heath said.

“We all took ice baths to recover in the hotel rooms, which is something that none of us will forget,” she said.

It worked, especially with the sophomores, who were killing it. Graves pumped in a team-best 17 points, including a critical 3 to open the fourth quarter, ending a scoring drought that saw the Lady Mountaineers put up only a deuce in the third.

“She just impressed the heck out of me,” Howard said.

“We just had to keep fighting through,” Heath said.

Heritage hit championship gear behind the bucket, outscoring the Cougars 25-10 in the fourth to put it away.

Coker’s heroics bordered on the unreal. For three games beginning with the sectional championship game, she played with a soft cast on her left hand to support a broken bone. Starting in place of Swaney, Coker removed the cast and put up a 5-of-7 shooting night to finish just back of Graves with 14 points.

Morris, an all-state tournament selection along with Smyth, Swaney and Heath, finished with 13, including 4-of-6 from the free-throw line. Graves finished 8-of-8 there, Heath 6-of-8 from the stripe.

Inside the final minute, the contest largely decided, only one question remained to be answered: Swaney.

After warmups, it was she who went to Howard with the news.

“She tried to go,” he said. “She said, ‘I don’t want to hold them back. She made the decision.”

When the clock ticked under a minute, she made another.

“I said, ‘Come on. Put me in. Put me in,'” Swaney said.

At 37 seconds remaining, Howard sent her to the scorer’s table.

Heritage wasn’t in need of a big finish at that point, but the Lady Mountaineers sure got one. Northview, understandably, was in no mood to simply let Swaney have a go. They marked her close. Coker was having none of it.

Seconds later, after Swaney inbounded the ball, Coker fired it right back before Northview could get there. Pulling from in front of the Heritage bench, Swaney hit nothing but net on a 3.

“Tears just came to my eyes,” Howard said.

He wasn’t alone.