The Oak Ridge Lady Wildcats won the Region 2-AAA championship with a 53-50 win over Maryville at Wildcat Arena on Wednesday, Feb. 27, 2019, after a three-point shot at the buzzer by senior Jada Guinn. (Photo by John Huotari/Oak Ridge Today)
Note: This story was last updated at 6:30 a.m. Feb. 28.
The Oak Ridge Lady Wildcats won the Region 2-AAA championship with a 53-50 win over Maryville on Wednesday after a three-point shot at the buzzer by senior Jada Guinn.
Guinn, a Miss Basketball finalist who has signed to play at Tennessee Tech, scored a game-high 21 points. She also had at least 10 rebounds.
Guinn, who was named most valuable player of the regional tournament, made two three-point shots in the final 33.9 seconds. The first one was from near the top of the key. She hit the last one-dribble shot from beyond the three-point line near the right sideline after an inbounds pass near half court following a timeout with 1.5 seconds remaining.
Jubilant fans erupted onto the floor of Wildcat Arena, cheering and jumping for joy after the dramatic finish.
Oak Ridge (32-2) will host Dobyns-Bennett (28-7), the Region 1 runner-up, at 7 p.m. Saturday at Wildcat Arena in a Class AAA sectional. The winner of that game will advance to the state tournament in Murfreesboro in March.
It was the fourth time in four years that Oak Ridge has played in the Region 2-AAA championship. The Lady Wildcats beat Bearden in 2016 and Hardin Valley in 2017, and they lost to Bearden last year.
Guinn has been named most valuable player of the regional tournament three of the past four years, in 2016, 2017, and this year.
Guinn has also been named most valuable player of the District 3-AAA tournament three of the past four years. Oak Ridge won the District 3-AAA championship this year on the team’s way to the regional tournament.
On Wednesday, Guinn scored her 819th point of the season with the winning three-pointer and tied Nikki Caldwell (Fargas) for number one in Oak Ridge history, according to Wildcats and Prepradio.com broadcaster David Clary.
Oak Ridge junior Bri Dunbar added 14 points for the Lady Wildcats against Maryville (30-3), the District 4 champion this year, and junior Raja Eckles scored eight.
The Lady Rebels were led by 6-foot-1 senior Lindsey Taylor, who scored 19 points and pulled down at least 11 rebounds, and Denae Fritz with 14 points and seven rebounds. Oak Ridge held Maryville to just one made three-point shot.
Oak Ridge advanced to the Region 2 championship by beating Bearden 50-43 in a semifinal elimination game at Wildcat Arena on Monday, and Maryville advanced by defeating Campbell County 60-52 in the other semifinal game.
The Lady Rebels will travel to play at Science Hill (30-3), the Region 1 champion, in Johnson City in another Class AAA sectional game on Saturday.
Oak Ridge and Dobyns-Bennett played in a Class AAA sectional in 2016. The Lady Wildcats won that game 39-32 before going on to finish as Class AAA runner-up in the state tournament. Guinn, who was then a freshman, had 14 points in the second half of the 2016 sectional game against Dobyns-Bennett.
The Lady Wildcats and Lady Rebels had 16 lead changes in the Region 2 championship game on Wednesday night.
Maryville had a 48-44 lead with about 2:20 remaining in the game. With no shot clock in high school basketball, the Lady Rebels started running time off the clock. But they turned the ball over out of bounds.
Oak Ridge quickly responded with a pass from Guinn to Eckles, who scored two, narrowing the Maryville lead to 48-46 with about two minutes left.
Oak Ridge sophomore Khamari Mitchell-Steen then went to the free throw line after a steal and, with one made shot, narrowed the Lady Rebels’ lead to 48-47 with 1:37 remaining.
Then, with about 45 seconds left, Fritz scored on a layup for the Lady Rebels, widening Maryville’s lead to 50-47.
That’s when Guinn made her first three-point shot from the top of the key, tying the score at 50 with 33.9 seconds left.
Under pressure from the Oak Ridge defense, Maryville turned the ball over at half court on its next possession, and with the 1.5 seconds remaining in the game, Guinn gave the Lady Wildcats the win with her second three-point shot.
Guinn, Dunbar, Eckles, and Steen were named to the Region 2 All Tournament Team.
More information will be added as it becomes available.
The shot heard around Oak Ridge! @ORSchools @ORLadyWildcats @OakRidgeSports @OakRidgeToday pic.twitter.com/AH03nW8oeT
— Myles Hebrard (@myleshebrard) February 28, 2019
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