Myrtle Beach girls top St. James in key region battle

MURRELLS INLET -- The Myrtle Beach girls aren’t ready to relinquish their hold on the Region VIII-AAA title just yet.

The Seahawks, outright winners of the past five region titles without suffering a single conference loss, kept their hopes of a title alive Friday night by handing St. James its first VIII-AAA defeat of the season to pull within a game of the Sharks.

Khadijah Sessions scored 30 points and the Seahawks (18-4, 6-2) scored all 12 of their points in the fourth quarter from the foul line to fend off the Sharks 48-45.

“We have to fight to the end,” Sessions said. “… The talk this year was Myrtle Beach was not going to be the region champs. Obviously we’re fighting back to try to get a region championship.”

The Sharks (18-4, 7-1), who lost their two games against Myrtle Beach last season by a combined 83 points, still can’t be denied a region title if they win their remaining two games next week against Wilson and Socastee.

“We have to put this one behind us,” Sharks coach Stan Patterson said. “… The girls have been working very hard and one of our goals coming in was to try to win the region championship and we’re still pursuing that goal.”

The Sharks opened up a 14-3 lead behind the inside game of Stephanie Roberts, who scored a team-high 19 points, but Myrtle Beach adjusted defensively to deny her the ball and used the defense to spur a 12-1 run to tie the game, and built a seven-point lead through three quarters.

“We started out in [man-to-man defense] and switched to a zone to try and get some more bodies on Roberts,” Seahawks coach Brian Kiper said. “I thought it was more offensively that we just needed to settle down a little bit and be more patient, and I thought we did that the rest of the game.”

St. James held Myrtle Beach without a point for the first five minutes of the fourth quarter, and Monica Smalls single-handedly erased the seven-point deficit to begin the quarter. She scored off a loose ball inside, added another inside basket, hit a short jumper in the paint and added a free throw with 3:14 remaining to tie the game at 36.

As St. James had several good looks rattle off the rim over the next two minutes, the Seahawks were able to pull away on the free throw line.

Sessions hit five of six free throw attempts in less than a minute and Keyana Rutledge added a free throw inside the final 2 minutes to give the Seahawks a 42-36 lead.

Free throws by Roberts and Smalls pulled St. James within four points, and a Rutledge 3-pointer in the corner with 1:30 to play pulled the Sharks within a point. A Smalls put-back gave the Sharks a 43-42 lead with 55 seconds remaining.

But the Seahawks went back to the free throw line to close out the win, as Sessions hit all four of her attempts in the final 45 seconds and Shaw went 2-for-2 to give the Seahawks a six-point lead with 12 seconds to play. A Shaw steal set up Sessions’ final two free throws.

St. James went 3-for-10 from the free throw line in the final 3:14. “You need to make free throws going down the stretch,” Patterson said. “That definitely helps you win basketball games. Khadijah made hers … but we didn’t make ours.”

The Seahawks fell to St. James 49-43 on Jan. 17 for their first VIII-AAA loss since the 2005-06 season, and also fell to Wilson in overtime last week. Any ties in the region between teams that split the two regular-season meetings are determined by a one-game playoff.

Without injured junior Tanisha Brown, who isn’t expected to return this season, the Seahawks have only three players who saw meaningful varsity action last year. “We have a bunch of young talent, but we are competing,” Sessions said.

•  MYRTLE BEACH (48) – Khadijah Sessions 30, Martina Ballestero 5, Shay Shaw 4, Tyrenda Sutton 3, Tasha Chestnut 3, Khardejah Anderson 2, Christiana Myers 1.

•  ST. JAMES (45) – Stephanie Roberts 19, Monica Smalls 13, Keyana Rutledge 8, Eldreonna Hannah 2, Briahna Dickerson 2, Charisma Rodriguez 1.

• 3-point goals: Myrtle Beach 3 (Sessions, Sutton, Ballestero); St. James 2 (Rutledge 2). Team fouls: Myrtle Beach 18, St. James 19. Fouled out: Dickerson (SJ). Technical fouls: None.

• Records: Myrtle Beach 18-4 (6-2 Region VIII-AAA), St. James 18-4 (7-1)