Nothing in baseball can match an ace pitcher, not even the weight of history.
FORT WAYNE – South Side coach Juanita Goodwell believes senior Jomani Thomas has a fear of her final high school season coming to an end.
“I told her not to have fear, but to have fun,” Goodwell said.
Whatever is motivating Thomas, it is working. She scored 10 of her 14 points in the fourth quarter as the Class 4A No. 3 Archers pulled away from host Homestead for a 66-57 sectional semifinal win Friday.
South Side (21-1) plays Wayne in the Homestead Sectional finals at 7:30 p.m. today. Wayne defeated New Haven 57-31.
The Spartans (18-6) got within 47-44 early in the fourth when Thomas scored six points in a 10-2 run as the Archers got some breathing room.
Thomas made 5 of 8 from the field in the fourth after going 2 of 7 in the first three quarters.
“She had a bad, bad first half but came in the fourth quarter and reenergized the group,” Goodwell said.
And when it got tight, Goodwell never called a timeout.
“I have to get my girls to fight, and if they fight that turns on the engine inside,” Goodwell said. “By not calling the timeout, it showed my team that I have confidence in them, and I trust (them) to get back together.”
Homestead knocked off South Side 48-42 in last year’s sectional finals, leaving the Archers with an empty feeling.
“Last year was a big upset to Homestead, and I didn’t want a repeat of that, so I played my heart out,” Thomas said. “They made us go home.”
Ariana Simmons led South Side with 19 points, Brittni Clopton had 12 and Lynnia Noel added 11.
“We wanted to get back with some revenge and come harder than last year,” Simmons said.
The Archers’ full-court pressure defense didn’t rattle the Spartans all that much, but the half-court set was stingy and helped to force 23 turnovers and contain a team with two 1,000-point career scorers in junior Emily Bley (15 points) and senior Carmen Lowe (10). Sydney Buck added 13 points for Homestead.
“We wanted to keep our spirits up and keep going and not stop,” Simmons said of pulling away from the Spartans. “(On defense) we got steal after steal, and we just kept going after that.”
The Archers beat the Spartans 80-65 in the regular season with Simmons and Clopton doing most of the damage. Spartans coach Rod Parker didn’t want that trend to happen again.
“South Side has a lot of weapons, and we worked to take away a couple of them,” Parker said.
“But Thomas had a big game. She had three or four possessions in the fourth that we defended her pretty well, but just made some pretty big shots over us.”
