Va. AA Division 3 Title Game Preview

Freedom Looks to Take Final Step Against Lee

By Paul Tenorio

Thursday, March 12, 2009

The game seemed to be slipping away from Freedom as the seconds ticked off the clock in the final quarter of its Virginia AA Division 3 semifinal on Tuesday night in Richmond, and the Eagles were showing no signs of life.

Meixandra Porter, the team's most trusted and experienced leader, was missing layups and open looks. And collectively from the line, the Eagles appeared unable to make their opportunities count – shooting just 5 of 12 in the third quarter.

But as had happened all season long, in the moments in which they were most needed to rise up, the group Freedom Coach Jason Eldredge calls "The Three Muskateers" all answered the call.

Dionna Scott hit a lay up to pull Freedom within six. Junior center Kelsey Buchanan raised up for two vicious blocks, then converted a three-point play on the other end to pull Freedom within one. Porter knocked down a three-pointer to tie the score and then followed it with a steal and lay in to give the Eagles the lead.

And Scott and Buchanan each added two more layups to extend the Eagles' lead to six with 2:55 left in the game.

The sequence spoke both to the gritty determination of a team intent upon reaching its ultimate goal when the season started, and also to the trio that has lifted a program from the bottom of their own league to the top of the state.

Afterwards, Coach Jason Eldredge talked about the history and growth of a program that once finished a season with just one win and now stands one win away from a state title.

"Well what helps is when your building fills up and you get a 6-3 kid and you get a Meixandra Porter," Eldredge said. "Yeah, we lost by an average of 42-and-a-half points a game that year, we were outscored in 22 games by 880 points. And I am no different of a coach then I am now. … And I stuck to my guns even though people were laughing at me. And that's OK, they can laugh. But I knew that the kids were coming."

No doubt, the infusion of talent like Porter, an athletic point guard headed to play for Colorado State, Buchanan, a 6-3 center, and Scott, an athletic guard who can play inside and out, completely reinvigorated the struggling, young program.

Now, just one win away, Freedom will face a Robert E. Lee program that has been stout defensively – holding teams to 38 or fewer points in five games during its current 11-game win streak.

Lee is a young team – there are no seniors on the roster and six freshmen – but bring plenty of size to the court and have an athletic freshman guard, Angela Mickens, who can run the floor well.

"They are young they start three freshmen and they are huge," Eldredge said. "They're not as tall as Kelsey but he's got four kids that are legitimately 5-10, 5-11 and one is 6-0 and they use their body very, very well. I am very concerned because if we let them settle in the half court and don’t front the post, they are going to dump it inside and get us in foul trouble. Dionna and Kelsey cant get in foul trouble. At this stage in the season we really cannot afford that."

Freedom struggled early against Millbrook and fell into a hole, but against a strong defensive team those early struggles may not be as easy to climb back from.

But if they do find themselves trailing, Eldredge said his team has shown a quality that has been critical in those situations.

"We have a lot of resolve," he said. "If they can know they're down and work their tails off to come back and still win, in the end even if they don't play well and everything's ugly, that's the tenacity they need to take to the next level or off into their life. And I'm most proud of that."

Extra Points

By Paul Tenorio and Matt Brooks