By Michael Cignoli (For OzarksSportsZone.com)
DIAMOND — It had been decades since Clever’s girls basketball team won a district championship, so it’s easy to understand why first-year coach Clark Satterlee needed one of his players to remind him of the last time the Blue Jays advanced to the state tournament.
They won’t forget this one anytime soon.
Riah Robinson led three players in double-figures with 21 points and Clever cruised to a 65-50 victory over Ash Grove in the Class 3 District 12 title game on Saturday at Diamond High School.
It is believed to be the school’s first district championship since 1992.
“It’s been a while,” Satterlee said. “We’ve had some decent teams here the last several years before I took over that were always in Strafford’s district or whatever. It’s been a long time coming.”
Funny he should mention that.
Clever will open the state tournament against the Indians, who beat them by 25 points earlier this month. The sectional is scheduled for 6 p.m. Wednesday at Willard High School.
Currently ranked second in the state, the Indians knocked off No. 3 Skyline to win their seventh consecutive district championship on Friday. They beat No. 10 Sparta earlier in the tournament.
With 2021 all-state selections Emma Compton and Laney Humble leading a deep and talented roster, the Indians (22-5) are looking to win an incredible sixth state title during this stretch.
“Strafford is just really disciplined,” Satterlee said. “That’s where we want to get and that’s what we’re pushing to do. We’ll get another chance at them. … We believe if we do what we’re capable of that we can make it a game. That’s what we’re going to try to do.”
CLICK HERE FOR PHOTOS OF THE GAME
Clever enters the state tournament with a seemingly unflattering 13-14 record, though 13 of those losses came to schools that are either currently ranked in the Class 3 state rankings or outside of their class. Put differently, only one loss came to an unranked Class 3 team.
That – and an eight-point victory over Ash Grove in December – is a big reason why the Blue Jays were awarded the top seed in the district even though they finished the regular season four games below .500. They beat Forsyth, Pierce City and the Pirates to prove they deserved it.
Ireland Jones had 17 points in Saturday’s decisive game, while Ruthie Brown added 16.
“Our record does not show our ability to win,” Jones said. “We lost a lot of close games during the regular season. We lost a lot by one or two. (Nine were) in single digits.”
Saturday’s game appeared to be well on its way to being another close one until Ash Grove senior Brittany Gilliland suffered an apparent knee injury midway through the second quarter.
The game was tied 19-19 when Gilliland exited and did not return. She had scored 11 of Ash Grove’s 19 points, all of them coming during a first quarter that ended with Ash Grove up 14-9.
Ash Grove coach Bryan Dean said Gilliland “blew” the ACL in her right knee in the summer of 2020, which caused her to miss all but 10 games during the 2020-21 season.
“She said it felt the same like last year,” Dean said. “It’s one of those deals. You hate it because it pulls at her heart. She wants to be there for her team. She’s a team player. She left it out on the floor. She was carrying us that first quarter.”
After Gilliland’s injury, the Blue Jays closed the half on a 14-2 run to build a 33-21 halftime lead. They continued that into the second half, opening with a 9-2 run to stretch the lead to 19 points.
“It’s awful that it happened to her, but we really just took charge of the press and how we were working as a team,” Jones said. “Our shots were flowing and because our shots were flowing, it hyped us up more, which caused us on the defensive end to be competitive. We were all feeding off of each other and that’s something that we really had done well this season.”
Clever led by as many as 22 before Ash Grove got some ground back in the fourth quarter.
“Once the Gilliland girl went out, it wasn’t really a fair fight,” Satterlee said. “That’s their point guard, one of their main players. I felt bad seeing a girl go down with an injury, but I told the girls that’s not anything we can control. We just have to play our game, make the right plays, try to win the game and that’s what we did from that point on.”
The win gave Satterlee a district championship in his first season coaching girls basketball.
He had spent 18 years as an assistant coach for Clever’s boys team, but wanted to be a varsity head coach. He resigned from the district over the summer and joined Billings, where the plan was for him to spend a year as the junior varsity coach and transition into a head coaching role.
Then the Clever girls basketball job became available.
With a stepdaughter in eighth grade, Satterlee couldn’t pass up the opportunity to coach her next year. So he resigned from Billings after roughly six weeks and came back to Clever.
One of the first things he told the girls is that the team had a very similar roster to his 2008 boys team that placed third in the state. Both had great seniors and a talented group of sophomores.
“We just kind of fit that same mold,” Satterlee said. “I told the girls I don’t know enough about girls basketball yet to know how good we are – because I don’t know – but with the make-up we have and the skill we have, I think we can do some things. It’s nice to see that come to fruition.”
Missouri State signee Khloe Moad scored 19 points in her final game for the Pirates, who finished the season 20-8. They were 13-2 since January 8, their only other loss coming to Miller, and amassed the most wins in a season since the 2014 team finished second in the state.
Dean credited Moad, Gilliland, Emma McClelland and Julianna Torbett – his outgoing senior class – for instilling a new culture at Ash Grove. The Pirates reached the district title game in three of their four varsity seasons, winning the championship in 2021.
“They’ve helped this Ash Grove Lady Pirates tradition get where it needs to be,” Dean said. “Playing for championships every year. Expecting the championships. They’ve left that legacy because legacy is built on tradition. Young girls in the stands have looked at them for four years and say they want to wear the same jerseys, same numbers. That’s a credit to those girls right there to make our program look the way it did.”
