Lady Cougars Upset at State
It was a stunning turn of events which saw the season come to an end for the Piedmont Academy Lady Cougars basketball team.
Last season’s defending state champion was upset in the Elite Eight Friday by Westminster-Augusta 86-78 in a game played in Macon.
Piedmont finishes the 2024-25 season at 23-6. The loss was disappointing for players and coaches.
“This was not the ending we had hoped for,” Coach Michael Wilson said. “It’s disappointing but once the tournament begins anything can happen.”
Westminster’s India Williams turned in an incredible performance with 61 points to help lead her team to the upset tournament win.
“Ultimately, it falls on me,” Wilson said. “I didn’t put the girls in the best position to win. I feel terrible about the outcome. They gave great effort and if you look at the stats you would think we won, but India was the X factor. I was worried about how we were going to stop her. Leading up to the game, I told a few coaches that I like our chances as long as she didn’t score 60. She did and it was my job to figure out how to not let that happen. She is an excellent player. She is fast and creative with the basketball and once she gets in the lane she’s hard to stop. Going 20-of-25 on her two-point attempts is just incredible.”
Only one other player finished in double figures for Westminster as Carolina Jordan scored 11.
For Piedmont, it was another strong performance by Marissa Holder who scored 30 points with 12 total rebounds (nine defensive, three offensive), six assists, six steals and a block.
The Lady Cougars had four players finish in double figures. Also helping lead the way were Kylee Keck (19 points, nine total rebounds, one assist, one steal), Emily Whitwell (13 points, six total rebounds, one assist and one steal) and Sarah Ellen Stroud (13 points, nine assists, two rebounds and one steal).
Senior Teagan Hinson finished with three points, seven rebounds and two assists.
“We executed our game plan on offense,” Wilson said. “We knew we’d get plenty of looks at three-pointers and when that is the case we are usually in great shape. We just had a tough third quarter shooting and they didn’t. We lost the third quarter decisively and other than that we had them. We had less turnovers and more steals, had more shots and rebounding was about even.”
Piedmont was 10-of-12 from the free throw line but Wilson said his team needed to have more attempts.
“We needed to get to the foul line more but ultimately that’s a situation we can’t control,” the coach said. “We attacked the basket but struggled making the attempts and didn’t get free throws out of them either.”
The tournament loss brought to a close the incredible career for Holder, who is now the school’s all time leading scorer (boys and girls) with 2,939 points, a 21.4 point per game average for 139 contests.
Holder also had 1,410 career rebounds with 689 assists, 551 steals, 75 double-doubles and seven triple doubles.
“It was a great season up until the last two games,” Wilson said. “I told the seniors one game doesn’t define what they’ve accomplished for Piedmont. What we will remember is this group wining 107 out of 144 games and making four Final Fours and three championship games, winning two in a row. That’s an amazing record, one that will be hard to match but one that we will work towards very soon.”
Holder and Keck will both compete in the upcoming GIAA All-Star game on Saturday, March 8, at Tattnall Square.