By Marcus Fitzsimmons
Special to D3hoops.com
PIEDMONT, Ga. — It's a series of winding roads to get to Piedmont from the north. With snow capping the Smokies and the high points of Cherokee National Forest it's a beautiful morning drive, even if you're left wondering how the school could be so close to East Tennessee geographically yet so far by paved surface.
The Johnny Mize Athletic Center may not be the largest gym in Division III but the seven year old facility provides a great venue as Great South tournament host site.
The first day has been a lesson in postseason play. The men's side highlighting the battle that left Maryville (Tenn.) standing undefeated and the other three going to the last line of tie-breakers after beating each other to a trio of identical 2-4 conference marks.
The women's side is the continuing story of the void between the have and have nots. Piedmont, as host and top-seed, is the favorite but is headed for a rematch of last year's final playing Maryville. The two are the only schools to own a GSAC women's basketball championship trophy even if this season the roles have flip-flopped from a year ago when the underdog Lady Lions won at the foul line 60-59 with less than a second remaining.
The upset bug's only minor appearance is MC's women downing No. 2 seed Agnes Scott but the Scotties have never defeated Maryville in the postseason.
The surprise of the first night was a presentation to MC men's coach Randy Lambert, who ends his term as athletic director for Maryville on May 31. Lambert was presented a gift wrapped and completed with gold bow for "being instrumental in the founding of the conference."
Maryville survived an 0-for-13 start to the second half without giving up the lead before racing away from Huntingdon 84-65 to advance to the finals.
The Scots led 51-40 at the break but HC cut the margin to three before Maryville found the range.
"I thought we had some good looks and just missed some shots," said Lambert. "I told the guys in the timeout and I told them to not be satisfied with the first look and make that next pass for a better look."
The Scots held the Hawks without a field goal for nine minutes while pushing the lead to 22 with 3:51 to play. Maryville finished the half with a 25-7 run the last 13 minutes.
"I thought we did some nice things with the help side second half and converted some defensive steals into points and made a nice run there when we had to," Lambert said. "We played when we had to but 40 points is too many points for us to give up in a half."
Sophomore post Chris Orr struggled from the line (1-for-8) but was key in mounting the game-changing charge scoring twice on offensive boards and finishing off an Eryk Watson steal with a rim-shuddering dunk. Watson finished with 16 after an icy 3-of-11 night while All-GSAC guard Alex Bowers put in 17 to match his counterpart from Huntingdon Jeremy Pittman.
Piedmont 75, LaGrange 74: Second-seeded and tournament host Piedmont held on in a rough and tumble affair taking a 75-74 win over LaGrange in the first men's semifinal of the day.
LaGrange's Landon Baize came down with an offensive board with two seconds remaining but couldn't draw a whistle as his putback attempt failed to take flight. Coach Warren Hayes leapt from the bench as the buzzer sounded in protest but to no avail.
National scoring leader Jake Baldwin was limited to 13 points as the Piedmont post is still shaking off a back injury that was aggravated in the Lions' last home game. Michael Rubio paced PC with 21 as five Piedmont players reached double digits.
LaGrange senior Demetrius Render netted a game-high 29 and Joe Cromwell added 20.
LC (6-19) took a brief one-point lead with 1:30 remaining before sophomore Samuel Coppage — a transfer to PC from Maryville — sank two free throws for the lead.
Piedmont advanced to Saturday's 4 p.m. (ET) finals in the Johnny Mize Athletic Center.
Women's: The top-seeded Lady Lions of Piedmont started strong taking a 15-point lead midway through the first half and cruised to the 91-77 semifinal win.
"I had to try and get them to refocus a little bit," said coach Jamie Childs-Purdy of PC's first half run that Huntingdon couldn't answer. "One of our problems this season has been being content to be two points ahead."
Piedmont, fourth in the latest South Region rankings, advanced to play No. 3 Maryville Saturday at 2 p.m.
"Nothing is going to be given to us. We may be the team to beat because we have been successful," Childs-Purdy said. "I read the other day that, 'someone is waiting around the corner to humble you.' I tell them what we've done in the past is over and we're one game a time."
Maryville 68, Agnes Scott 55: Opening the day's action third-seeded Maryville (Tenn.) bounced back from horrid first half shooting (27.6 percent) to down No. 2 seed
Agnes Scott, 68-55.
The Scots (15-11) trailed 24-23 at half after 8-for-29 shooting while allowing ASC's Morgan Smith nine points and sending the Scotties to the foul line for 14 points (14-of-16).
MC interim head coach Brian Fowler rallied Maryville in the locker room. Senior Katie Saxe led the charge netting 14 of her game-high 16 in the last 20 minutes. Jeanna Dalton went 3-of-4 from 3-point land to finish with 15 while Colleen McConnell added 14. Former Lady Vol outfielder Alicia Brown added a dozen as Maryville's guards made a positive showing following a regular season of harsh criticism.
Besides a scoring punch Maryville's ball-handlers made just five second half miscues to finish near a season best 15 while forcing 32 turnovers by the Scotties.
Smith was held to four in the second half as ASC (17-9) looked to Evan Joslin (14) and Janee Blake (11) for production. MC's bench outscored the injury-riddled ASC bench 23-0. as four Scotties starters logged 40 minutes in the loss.
Maryville preserves its streak of GSAC title game appearances, having reached the championship contest every year since the conference's formation in 2000-01. MC 5-2 in the GSAC title game with both losses ('01-02 and 06-07) coming to Piedmont — this year's regular season champion.