JOHNSTON – Octavia
Etheredge was nowhere to be found.

She had been swarmed over by a
literal sea of red, white and blue clad Thurmond
fans.

All game long she had played her
role. She had hustled and rebounded.

But towards the end of the
Upper
State semifinal playoff
game she was still just another Lady Rebel player.

That all changed Tuesday night in
1.7 seconds after Etheredge banked in a layup at the buzzer to lift an underdog
Strom Thurmond team to a stunning 54-53 upset of the top-ranked Lady Shamrocks
of Eau Claire High School – a team that had not lost a game to a 2-A school all
season. In fact, the Lady Shamrocks had only dropped a pair of games to Class
4-A power Lower Richland in posting a 24-2
record.

But now they were 24-3 and it was
Etheredge’s bucket (her only field goal of the entire game) that had done
it.

Now Etheredge felt something she had
never felt before.

She felt like she was a
star.

“It’s an unbelievable feeling,” she
said. “I never felt that before. I felt like a celebrity out there. People
wanted to talk to me.”

She had earned the extra attention
by maintaining her focus at the most critical moment of the entire season, and
by making a play when every one of her teammates was depending upon
her.

Thurmond had been given an
unexpected gift.

After Junicia Lee, who finished with
eight points, collared an offensive rebound and put back a huge layup to cut the
Eau Claire lead
to just one point at 53-52, Thurmond head coach Jessica Parker called her final
timeout to get the Lady Rebels defense set. Then, set up under the Thurmond
basket, the Eau
Claire player inbounding the ball suddenly threw the ball
over everyone’s heads and out of bounds.

But there was less than two seconds
left on the clock and Parker had to call in a play from the
sideline.

As she often does, the call –
“double” – was designed to get Thurmond standout Courtney Mealing the
basketball.

Mealing had kept the Lady Rebels in
it, scoring a game-high 29 points and hitting shots from all angles in the
second half.

The Lady Shamrocks had seen enough
and were not going to let Mealing beat them.

“We run that play in practice and
it’s in the playbook,” Parker said of the play. “I knew that with them doubling
Courtney that Octavia could be wide open and she
was.”

Etheredge said nerves began to run
through her body before the play started.

“But after (Junicia Lee) said
‘break’ (to start the play) I faked to my left and went back to my right and all
that went away,” she said. “I got the ball and all I could think was ‘I got
it.’”

Mealing, a senior, was hounded on
each and every offensive possession by two and three Lady Shamrock players, but
she remained poised throughout.

“I’m just glad that we won,” she
said, finally able to allow her face to break into a smile. “We were the underdogs
and we took it away. Everybody was talking about (Eau Claire) having two players over six-feet
tall like that was going to phase us. We played hard and came out with the win.
We gave up a lot of second chance baskets, but we never gave
up.”

Toward the end of the game, it
appeared as if the undersized scrappiness of the Lady Rebels had taken it’s toll
as two starters (Amanda Parks and Citiyah Burton) were on the bench with five
fouls.

Eau
Claire had used that size to great effect
on the offensive and defensive boards, compiling an amazing 33-14 rebounding
advantage.

But it was the Lady Rebels – ranked
No. 4 by the High School Sports Report – who won the only battle that mattered,
the one on the scoreboard.

“We knew that we had to pick it up
in the second half and come out and play,” Parker said. “They came out and
played with heart until the buzzer went off. They were killing us on the
offensive boards but we had talked before about them being some of the biggest
girls we’ve played against and I thought we played well. This is the best game
I’ve ever coached and defense has been our key. We came out on top and we’re
moving on. We’re going to come out to practice (Wednesday) and treat it like
just another win. We have to go right back to work. We have another game to play
on Saturday.”

Strom Thurmond (23-4) will take on
Southside High on Saturday at the Bi-Lo
Center in Greenville for the 2-A
Upper State title at 2:30 p.m.

Amelia Carrie led the Lady Shamrocks
with a team-high 19 points.