Camden girls get past Bishop England and into 3A SC basketball championship game
Deanna Jeffcoat let go of a 3-point attempt in a pivotal moment in the game’s second half and started to bounce back on defense, as if she knew it was going in.
And she was right.
That bucket delivered Camden a 35-18 lead with just over three minutes left in the third quarter, and it pretty much told the story of the team’s 47-33 win over Bishop England on Monday night at the Florence Center: The Bulldogs hit seven 3-pointers en route to securing the 3A Lower State championship.
They’ll next play Keenan in the 3A state title game at USC Aiken on Friday at 6 p.m.
Camden is making its first state championship appearance since 1982.
“This is so exciting,” Camden head coach Natalie Jeffcoat told reporters. “This is what the kids have worked for, and we just gotta take advantage of our opportunity. I don’t know if I have the words for how proud I am. We’ve overcome a good bit of adversity this year, played a really ambitious pre-conference schedule, and all of those things have seemed to pay off to get to this point.”
Camden started hot on Monday evening — scoring its first nine points from 3-point territory — and the Bulldogs stayed hot.
Bishop England appeared to begin the game with a box-and-one defense on Camden sophomore Joyce Edwards, who was recently declared South Carolina’s 3A Co-Player of the Year and the No. 1 prospect in the country, per ESPN HoopGurlz’s rankings for the class of 2024.
And that opened up opportunities for everyone.
“We knew that they were really going to try to squeeze Joyce on the inside, and we felt like we were going to have opportunities to make those 3s,” Jeffcoat said. “We’ve had kids who’ve hit big shots like that all year, and fortunately today we were able to knock enough down to bring it home.”
After jumping out to a 15-4 lead in the first, BE cut the game to as close as 19-12 in the first half. Camden wouldn’t let the game get any closer after that.
The Bulldogs went on a big run in the second half — one that included Jeffcoat’s aforementioned 3 that fueled a 17-point third quarter — and Bishop England couldn’t compel a reciprocal response.
Camden saw six players score on Monday night. Edwards led all scorers with 14 points. Morgan Champion and Deanna Jeffcoat each notched 13. And Zyasia Carter (3), Braylin Mungo (2) and Tateyoina Harris (2) got in the scoring mix, too.
Bishop England saw two go for double-figures: Ella Schar finished with 12 points, and Ally Dominiak had 11.
Coach Jeffcoat is a Camden alumna. Before joining her players after the game’s final buzzer sounded — they were celebrating and taking pictures near their locker room — she reflected on what it means to represent her “home” on a state championship stage.
“It’s really special,” Jeffcoat said. “It was a lot of fun for me to be a part of that Camden basketball tradition, so it feels really good. We’ve had some hard years, so it feels really good to have made it to this point.”
