Aliyah Johnson of Richmond Hill led the Lady Wildcats to the Region 2-AAAA championship last week. She scored 72 points in three wins including Saturday's upset of Statesboro in which she scored the first 16 points for her team. "I just knew what I had to do," said Johnson. "I drove to the basket, I shot, I felt as if nobody could really stop me then. There was adrenaline pumping and I knew what I had to do to get the job done."
Are you telling me you were in a zone? "I was in a zone that night, I must say I was in a zone."
Coach Elizabeth Bennett added, "You know, there was something in her eyes that I saw and I turned around to may assistant and I said, she's got something going on, I don't know what it is but she's got something going on and she's going to be hard to stop tonight and then lo and behold, 16 points later, she did a reverse layup I didn't even know she had in her."
Coach Bennett says Johnson is hard to stop because she can do so many things. "It's the diversity in her game, to be honest with you. She's got midrange, she's got post up moves. I can play her anywhere from the 1 to the 4 and when you're that kind of player and you can really play anywhere on the floor, it's hard to stop because you can't stop just one part of her game."
"It was a lot of dribble penetration, a lot of pull ups," said Johnson. "If they stopped my jump shot, I'd take them to the hole. If they stop the drive, I had to shoot. I took what the defense gave me."
On beating a Statesboro team that had dominated Region 2-AAAA, "We came out hard and I don't think they expected us to come out as hard as we did," said Johnson. "We knew what we had to do and they came out and thought it was going to be an easy win and we proved them wrong."
Bennett added, "My staff and I prepared the players and came up with a game plan. My girls are really good about watching film on their own. We played Statesboro, I believe, on November 11th and from that point to this point we're a different team. We've gotten better. We've worked to get better and they may have thought they were 30-points better than us but we knew that wasn't the case."
Now, it's on to the state tournament and Richmond Hill will host Bainbridge Friday night at 7:00.
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