The Ballad of Maddy Stewart

Selfless senior key to Lady Tornado state berth

By Stefan Cooper
Editor
Blount Press Row

Brylee Flatt has the sweetest stroke in the state.

Need to work on your shot?

Just watch her … and copy everything.

Gwen Carroll, Harper Stinnett?

Alcoa’s top bucket getters define the job. Whether off the dibble or the set piece, they can put the biscuit in the basket all game long. A lot.

In senior Halle Bailey, the Lady Tornadoes have the ultimate player at the game’s most important position. Lift the tempo, slow it down, get the ball to the hot shooter, the Tennessee softball signee delivers, 10 times out of 10.

Each of those players makes Alcoa as good a betting favorite as any at The BlueCross Basketball Championships this week in Murfreesboro. The ace?

Maddy Stewart.

The Lady Tornadoes (27-7) open play in the Class 3A state tournament with a quarterfinal matchup with Tullahoma (22-10) on Wednesday at Middle Tennessee State University.

Tipoff at the Murphy Center is 5:30 CST.

Alcoa punched its ticket to the dance with a gutsy, 47-36 sectional win over Upperman on Saturday. The Bees stayed right there throughout until a Carroll three in the closing minutes provided the necessary breathing room to get the Lady Tornadoes home.

Carroll paced Alcoa with 12 points, with Stinnett and Flatt going for 10 each. Bailey added three to go with her point-guard duties as seven players tallied at least a point. Stewart finished with nine, but it isn’t her scoring, necessarily, that makes her so valuable to these Lady Tornadoes.

“This is a special group, a connected group,” Alcoa coach David Baumann said. “Really, more than anything, we just want want to keep going so we can stay together.”

Flatt, Stinnett, Carroll and the rest need shots to do their damage, and there are only so many in a basketball game. Stewart, a tall, athletic center, can score with the best of them. A step-through, up-and-under finish with the left hand against the Bees is as nice as it gets.

Stewart is likely to defer more often than not, though. She’s just as pumped grabbing a big rebound, coming away with a momentum-snatching block or finding a teammate with a better look as she is in the points she scores.

That kind of thing adds the element every team with championship aspirations must have to reach the mountain top: chemistry.

In that regard, Stewart has few, if any, peers.