Your Pickens County

COLUMBIA — After making a 20-game winning streak look easy, the Daniel girls’ basketball team was a bit shellshocked in the first quarter of Saturday’s State championship game at the Colonial Life Arena in Columbia.
Myrtle Beach, led by highly regarded sophomore Khadijah Sessions, bounced out to a 15-2 lead barely five minutes into the game.
But the Daniel girls kept in mind something that coach Jody Powell had said before taking the court with her team.
“The last thing we said before we came out of the locker room was that we’d fight until the end, and that’s what we did,” Powell said.
The Lady Lions did indeed battle back, eventually taking their first lead of the game with 6:21 remaining in the fourth quarter at 45-44. From there, the two teams traded leads before Daniel’s Sherece Smith hit two clutch free throws with 10 seconds left in regulation to take the game into overtime after two potential Myrtle Beach game-winners missed in the final seconds.
In overtime, the Lady Lions took an early lead on a Carley Hoover layup, but after captains Smith and Anicia Dotson fouled out, Sessions iced the game for the Seahawks with three free throws in the final 30 seconds.
“My kids fought to the end,” Powell said. “They stayed in it. They should be proud of what they did, and I feel great that we were able to compete for the state championship.”