Hornets keep season alive with home win

Aiken's Erin Gilmore drives to the basket against Destyni Polk of White Knoll. Gilmore scored 19 points to lead the Hornets to a 49-41 win in a Class AAAA play-in game Friday. Staff photo by Cam Huffman.

After a string of five straight losses, Aiken High School’s girls’ basketball team won for the first time since Jan. 20 Friday night, knocking off White Knoll High School 49-41.

The Hornets definitely picked the right time to end their skid.

Aiken’s hard-fought victory came in a play-in game for the Class AAAA playoffs. The Hornets finished 2-8 in Region 5-AAAA, the same as both South Aiken and White Knoll. In a tie-breaker that starts with a points system, the Thoroughbreds were eliminated because of their weaker strength of schedule, leaving the Hornets and Timberwolves left to battle it out for the fourth and final playoff spot out of the region.

“It helps,” said AHS head coach Aubrey Pompey. “We said coming into tonight that we could eliminate a lot of negatives by just moving forward. It was a good night.”

The play-in victory didn’t come easy for the Hornets, who led by as many as 15 in the second half but saw that cushion dwindled to eight in the closing minutes. The visitors had chances to draw even closer, but Summer Cagle missed the front end of a one-and-one, and Destyni Polk missed a pair of free throws inside of the 2-minute mark in the fourth quarter, helping Aiken stay in front.

With 1:34 left to go, Erin Gilmore used her ballhandling skills to play keep-away with the WKHS defense, running out the clock and securing the victory.

Gilmore’s impact, though, went well beyond her dribbling expertise. The junior point guard took over in the second quarter, helping turn an 18-15 AHS lead with 2:44 left before the halftime break into a 32-19 Hornet advantage midway through the third quarter. Gilmore scored 14 of her game-high 19 points in the second and third quarters, doing most of her damage by getting into the passing lanes for steals and scoring easy points in transition.

“I told them after the game that tonight was probably the best game I’ve seen her play,” said Pompey. “I was really pleased with her effort. That’s the Erin I’ve been looking for all year.”

The Aiken defense was the difference in the game for most of the night. Only Summer Cagle, who scored eight of her team-high 16 points at the charity stripe, finished in double digits for the Wolves, who were held to just one field goal in the opening quarter.

“That’s been one of our areas of weakness all year,” said Pompey of the effort on the defensive end. “We said we had to play better, and I thought we were pretty steady.”

Like Cagle, the Hornets did a solid job of getting to the line for easy points. In fact, that’s what allowed AHS to hold on, as it scored just one field goal in the final eight minutes and found its other nine points at the line. Sophie Nance was 8-of-11 on free throws for the game and finished in double figures with 12 points.

“Any time we run our sets, we can get the ball inside going toward the basket,” Pompey explained. “That helped us get to the line, and we did a good job there.”

Aiken’s reward for the victory is a first-round matchup on the road against Colleton County, the No. 1 seed out of Region 8-AAAA. That contest will be played Tuesday night.

“You want to try to go as deep as you can, but it’s going to be tough,” said Pompey of his postseason expectations. “We’re going to have to go play a No. 1 seed from another region. But the goal is to keep moving on. We have a young group, and this experience will be helpful for them.”

AHS    14 10 14 11 – 49

WKHS    5 12 11 13 – 41

Aiken (7-17) Erin Gilmore 6 6-11 19, Kelsee Sapp 1 2-2 4, Autriauna Ingram 2 2-2 6, Kinsley Hall 4 0-2 8, Sophie Nance 2 8-11 12. Totals 15 18-28 49.

3-pointers: Gilmore.

White Knoll (8-13) Jessica Shiver 1 1-2 3, Nora Williams 3 0-0 6, Summer Cagle 4 8-10 16, Victoria Caughman 0 2-4 2, Kiara Keisler 3 0-1 6, Destyni Polk 0 0-2 0, Elizabeth Voelker 2 0-0 5, Cherell Davis 1 0-0 2, Lindsey Kelly 0 1-2 1. Totals 14 12-21 41.

3-pointers: Voelker.