The March 3, 50-46 loss to Alleghany in the Sweet Sixteen of the N.C. High School Athletic Association 1A tournament couldn’t have been tougher for the Highlands girls basketball team.
Or hurt more.
While the statistics didn’t favor the Lady Highlanders to beat the highly touted Alleghany Trojans, Highlands had the Lady Trojans on the ropes and could have won the March 3 contest to advance to the fourth round of the NCHSAA Class 1A tournament.
According to coach Jacob Page, yes, the loss hurt, but he expects his team to learn from it and use it for the future.
“I couldn’t be more proud of our girls this year and how they came together as a team this year,” Page said. “It hurts to go out the way we did, especially being so close to the fourth round, but hopefully we can learn from it and use it for the future.”
The Lady Highlanders played the 2020 portion of their schedule like they deserved to be in that fourth round with the other 20-plus-win teams like Murphy and Mitchell.
Highlands was 5-9 on Jan. 13 as the meat of its Little Smoky Mountain Conference began, posting a 12-3 record to run the table on the conference schedule and breeze through the tournament to nab the LSMC’s number one seed and seventh seed overall in the tournament. Page said his team’s play was nothing short of outstanding.
“To be 5-9 at one point in the season, to turning it around and going undefeated in conference play and winning the conference tournament and winning 12 out of our last 15 says a lot about the character of my girls,” he said. “There was no quit in them. When it got tough we kept our heads high and still came to work every single day to get better.”
Page believes in order to play with the best, they have to play the best, including teams like top ranked Murphy, Franklin and other larger schools.
“We play one of the hardest schedules in the state and to have a season like we did (17-12 overall, 6-0 LSMC) is something to hold our heads up high about,” he said.
In 2020-21, the Lady Highlanders return a strong and deep team, returning everybody but two seniors, in Kedra McCall and Bailey Schmitt, but will miss the loss of its heart and soul in McCall, a four-year starter and team leader on and off the court.
“We will miss Ked and Bailey tremendously and everything they have done for our program, but we are still very young and the future is bright for this program,” Page said. “We still have to continue to come to work and get better.”
McCall was voted honorable mention All-LSMC.
Led by Jordan Carrier, Little Smoky Mountain Conference Co-Player of the Year along with Blue Ridge’s Charlotte Sherrill, the Lady Highlanders return a potent and young lineup.
Carrier also led her junior class of 2021 1A in three pointers made.
Sophomores Hayley Borino made All-LSMC first team and Julia May Schmitt received an honorable mention.
Work on the 2020-21 season began right after the bus ride home after the loss to Alleghany.
“The offseason will be very important for my team,” Page said. “I love these girls and I am thankful to have the opportunity to coach them.”
Highlands boys moving forward
What was seen as a rebuilding year for the Highlands boys basketball team, turned into a Little Smoky Mountain tournament championship.
Coach Brett Lamb was proud of his players’ development over the course of the season.
“I felt that our season was a growing year and we made some huge strides as the season went along,” he said. “I knew with so few players having varsity experience it could be an up and down year and that was the case.”
Lamb said his team played some great games and were competitive in others, and at times betrayed their youth.
“We played some of the best games against the bigger schools we played,” he said. “We lost to Franklin by two, Brevard by seven, Hayesville by seven and Cherokee by six. We had great wins over Murphy, Robbinsville twice and Nantahala twice.
Lamb said his goal was for his team to be playing its best basketball at the end of the year.
The Highlanders did exactly that.
“We won our last three games, which included one regular season and the two tournament games,” he said. “We knew we had to win the tournament in order to get in the state playoffs. We had a great game versus Nantahala winning by one and beating Hiwassee Dam by 19 in the championship.”
Lamb said he’d miss his four seniors, who showed a lot of leadership and dedication to the program, but 2020-21 looks promising with the number of players returning.
“With eight varsity players coming back and a JV team that won the conference championship, this helps us build for the future,” Lamb said.
For the Highlanders, sophomore Reid Carrier earned first team, All-LSMC honors and senior Dillon Schmitt was named honorable mention. Schmitt was also selected to play in the East/Midwest All-Star Game scheduled for March 21 at Cherokee. Lamb, along with Nantahala Coach Josh Taylor have been chosen to coach the West All-Start team.