On paper it looked like 12th seeded West St. Mary’s High School would have no problem with the #22 seed Jonesboro-Hodge Lady Tigers in the LHSAA Division IV first round girls basketball playoff game.
They don’t play basketball games on paper!
WSM did win the contest to advance to the second round but JHHS gave the favored home-standing team all they could handle before falling late by a 50-45 margin. With the victory West St. Mary’s improved to 15-11 on the season and moved on to play #5 seed Midland while JHHS sees their season end come to a close with a 12-20 mark.
Tyya Davis led JHHS in scoring with 11 points, followed by 9 from Sanaa Tatum. Morgan McGee and Nesha Johnson ended with 8 points each while Jalenya Jackson finished with five and LaKayla McGuired scored four.
Not many gave JHHS much of a chance after the Lady Tigers entered the playoffs having lost 7 of their final 8 games and West St. Mary’s was riding a ten game winning streak. They didn’t know the momentum that JHHS head coach Shan Jackson has been building in her second year at the helm.
Two years ago, JHHS was a three win team. Last year the Lady Tigers tasted victory just six times leading to this season where J-H doubled their win total from the previous year once again and won three more games than in the last two years combined.
” I’m extremely proud of these young ladies,” said Jackson. “They have done what a lot of people thought couldn’t be done, and our goal was to get one percent better everyday and we did just that.”
While the present shows that the 2024-25 season is over, and Jackson knows that there is still a lot of work to do, she also is eager and optimistic about the fortunes of her team in the future,
“This is only the beginning and I’m determined to bring the culture and pride back to this basketball program,” said Jackson. “I always refer back to what my daughter told me after my first year when she said ‘Mom, Rome wasn’t built overnight,’ but we will continue to build brick by brick.”
Tyya Davis led JHHS in scoring with 11 points, followed by 9 from Sanaa Tatum. Morgan McGee and Nesha Johnson ended with 8 points each while Jalenya Jackson finished with five and LaKayla McGuired scored four.