Andrew Jackson looks to avoid repeat of last year’s state semifinal loss

The second half of the 2023 2A Girls Basketball Lower State Championship lives in the nightmares of the Andrew Jackson faithful.

After taking a 34-22 lead at halftime, the Volunteers could only muster four points the entire second half as Bishop England stormed back to take a 39-38 win.

It was a meltdown that Andrew Jackson head coach Steven Fair attributed to conditioning.

This year, the teams meet again with the same stakes on the line: a trip to the state championship.

“We’ve had two tremendous practices, looking forward to a third great practice today,” Fair said. “We’re really keying in on boxing out and getting back in transition. Two things we noticed on film is how well Bishop England rebounds offensively. In fact, they mostly miss the first shot, but that second, third and fourth opportunity, they really take advantage of it. They put up big numbers in that category and in transition. Their bigs run the floor really well.”

Fair knows that this year’s game will be much different from last year’s.

The experience from the loss is a motivating factor, and it helps having the 2A girls basketball player of the year, junior Tamia Watkins.

“We don’t have the depth that we’d like, but we try to use the potential of each student athlete that we do have,” Fair said. “If we can steal 45 seconds or maybe a minute and a half at the end of each quarter, it would do our team a tremendous justice. With the addition of Tamia Watkins, it makes us much more dangerous on the offensive end as well as the defensive end in the sense that she brings another added dimension in shot blocking.”

The game tips off Saturday at 6 p.m.