Stratford advances to state title with second half surge, defeats George Walton 63-48

COLUMBUS, Ga. — The Stratford Eaglettes have fought through their fair share of slumps.

Like any basketball team, Stratford has had trouble shooting occasionally. The Eaglettes have played bad minutes, even bad quarters.

When Straftord played a bad half and went into the locker room down 12 points at the break in the state semifinals Thursday, it looked like the Eaglettes had picked the worst time to falter.

Then they settled in, got comfortable and dominated.

The second half was all Eaglettes, as incredible efforts from Camiyah Hudson and Delaila Lowe fueled a 63-48 win that sent Stratford to the GIAA Class 4A State Championship game for a chance at their first state trophy since 2006.

Stratford outscored George Walton 43-16 in the second half as the Eaglettes more than doubled their first half scoring. Hudson had 18 of her 29 points in the second half, while Lowe’s surge consisted of 13 points. 

Lowe’s performance was particularly impressive, as the star point guard struggled at times with her shooting but fought through it to power Stratford’s comeback.

“Well, the good and the bad of it is that Delaila doesn’t have much of a conscience. She’s like a defensive back in football, if she has a bad play she forgets about it and moves on to the next one. That’s probably the best characteristic about her,” Stratford head coach Ed Smith said. “Sometimes there’s some bad to it, but there’s just too much good. When it’s on the line, she’s like Camiyah. She’s hungry, and it showed tonight.”

The fire from Hudson and Lowe pushed the rest of the Eaglettes, who became more comfortable as a unit in the second half, Smith said. After going into the break down 32-20, Stratford forced their way inside and drew some fouls that helped loosen things up. Freshman Hatsy Russell also helped the team’s mojo with some boards and points down low.

“Once we decided to stop shooting so many threes unnecessarily … we got some stuff inside, we got Camiyah off inside. Hatsy came in and gave us some good minutes. Once that happened, then we got a little more confident on the outside and started hitting a few shots then,” Smith said.

It was certainly a tale of two halves. Stratford looked solid enough in the first quarter, keeping it close with good defense and drives to the basket even while perimeter shooting was lacking. A few uncharacteristic airballs damaged the Eaglettes’ confidence, though, and Stratford only scored 5 points in the second period while the Bulldogs got hot and scored 18.

Perhaps Smith and the Eaglettes got a bit of déjà vu at that point — after all, two of Stratford’s three regular season losses came against George Walton, including one gut-wrenching 60-57 defeat in overtime. The Bulldogs looked smooth. The Eaglettes did not.

George Walton’s lead held at 12 for a bit before Stratford turned it on a few minutes into the third. Down 36-22, a 3-pointer from Hayden Craddock got things started. Russell followed with a pair of free throws to make it 36-27. 

Then Hudson answered a layup from the Bulldogs with a 3-pointer before Lowe made two foul shots — and in the blink of an eye, a 14-point deficit became a 6-point gap. 

George Walton called a timeout with about four minutes left in the third quarter and appeared to recover a bit with a 3-pointer, but a 5-point burst from Hudson on a long-range shot and free throws closed the gap further.

The wheels fell off from there as Lowe and Hudson remained hot. Stratford’s defense also clamped down to keep the fourth quarter one-sided, a change Smith credited to finally figuring out George Walton’s scheme.

“(George Walton) stayed with what they do … we actually run it ourselves a good bit. I told our girls, ‘We gotta stop getting beat with our own stuff.’ The second half we got a little more comfortable, and if you noticed, it kind of slowed their attack down,” Smith said. “They were still going to the basket and taking good shots, but once we got ‘em deeper into the shot clock by defending, they tightened up just a little bit.”

Hudson had a game-high 29 points. Lowe followed with 19 points, while Craddock netted 9 points. Kenzie Johnson led George Walton with 16 points, including three shots from beyond the arc.

Now Smith and the Eagles will play for the 4A state title Saturday against the winner of No. 1 Athens Christian and No. 5 Loganville Christian in the second semifinal Thursday night. While Smith has plenty of experience in title games — he led Stratford to its most recent championship in 2006 and had them in the title game as recently as 2014 — the current group will need to be ready for adjustments in what will be the biggest game of their careers thus far.

Smith thinks his squad can rise to the challenge.

“You hope the excitement of the comeback win tonight and the excitement of getting there — we’re not gonna be satisfied,” Smith said. “We’ve played Loganville before, that’s a better physical matchup for us. If it’s (Athens Christian), they’ve got the size. Like I told (the team) in there: ‘Hatsy came in and played. There’s gonna be some of you guys … that haven’t played much, you’re gonna have to come in and play some.’

“Tonight, we got hot with a group. When you start making that group, you just gotta run with ‘em. That’s kind of what we did in the second half. It could be totally different, we’ll have to get bigs in the game.”

The championship game is set for 6:20 p.m. Saturday at Columbus State’s Lumpkin Center.