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Chelsea fell short in the state championship game to Park Crossing, but the Hornets’ fighting spirit exemplified their rise to the top and laid the foundation for years to come. (For the Reporter/Jeremy Raines)

By ANDREW SIMONSON | Sports Editor

BIRMINGHAM – The Chelsea Hornets went into the halftime break of the Class 6A girls basketball state championship down double digits with the odds stacked against them, but the Hornets had been in that position before.

Chelsea coach Jason Harlow and his players had Jan. 4 in the back of their mind, when a loss to Mississippi’s Pontotoc at the Border Wars dropped them to 12-8 on the year. With confidence dwindling, the Hornets needed to come together and save their season.

That game was a million miles in the rearview mirror, as Chelsea won every game the rest of the way to be one of the two teams left standing on Saturday, March 1 at Legacy Arena at the BJCC. However, it became a rallying cry in the halftime locker room against the Park Crossing Thunderbirds.

“I just feel like throughout the year, especially in the middle of the year, we just kind of struggled,” Chelsea junior forward Caroline Brown said. “We were obviously down, we just were like, ‘What are we going to do,’ kind of to the point of like, honestly, we didn’t know what to do. We were just all kind of, not like giving up on each other, but just thinking we could not win. I just feel like everyone as a team, since we’re just family, we just all realized, ‘This can’t happen, we are good, we’re Chelsea basketball, we can get far in this,’ and we did. So, I just love these girls. Everything we do, I feel like we go hard. We want to go hard, no matter what the adversity.”

The Hornets fought back in the second half, eventually cutting the deficit to 41-38 off a 3-pointer from Sadie Schwallie, one of four players featuring in their final game for the school.

While the comeback wasn’t completed and Chelsea lost 49-39 to Park Crossing, its rally electrified the traveling crowd and reminded the city of their Hornets’ fighting spirit.

“We talked at halftime, and I told the girls, ‘We did not play very well, we played poorly to be honest in the first half, and Park Crossing obviously had a lot to do with that,’” Harlow said. “But I said, ‘When we started this back in April, if I would have told you the first day of tryouts that we would find ourselves in the scenario, where you’d be playing for the state championship and you didn’t play well in that half, and you’d only be down 10, would you have taken it? Because there’s been a lot of sweat and hard work that we’ve put into this thing. So, we’re going to keep playing,’ and they did, and that’s just their nature, they have no quit in them.

“I’m extremely proud of them for not laying down. To cut it to three, I thought it was a tall task.”

The game started out sloppy on both sides as neither team could make baskets in the early minutes, but an 0-for-12 start for Park Crossing allowed Chelsea to take a 4-0 lead at the midway mark of the first quarter off an Olivia Pryor basket and a pair of Haley Trotter free throws.

However, the Hornets continued to get beat on the boards in the first half, with the Thunderbirds winning the first-half rebound battle 25-16 and the offensive rebound column 12-3.

The offensive boards proved crucial as after a pair of Park Crossing 3-pointers, it took an 8-6 lead with a put-back with 1:13 left in the first.

After the Thunderbirds took a 10-8 lead into the second quarter, they hit an early 3-pointer to get their first two-possession lead of the game. While Schwallie and Juliann Bass found the rim during the opening stretch of the third, Park Crossing put together a string of transition layups to outpace Chelsea.

The Thunderbirds then capped off a 7-0 run with another 3-pointer to take their first double-digit lead of the day, a 22-12 advantage with 2:50 left until halftime.

The Hornets would endure a four-minute scoring drought before Trotter scored with 55 seconds remaining to make it a 24-14 game going into the locker room.

Park Crossing extended the lead to 29-16 with a pair of baskets in quick succession early in the third, but Chelsea responded with a quick 6-0 run in less than a minute with a Brown steal and a layup and a Trotter 3-pointer.

That cut the deficit to 29-22 with 3:35 left in the third, but the Thunderbirds scored three of the final four baskets in the quarter to get back to a double-digit lead as they led 35-34 ahead of the fourth.

However, the Hornets refused to go down quietly.

Chelsea opened the fourth on a 5-0 run as Brown and Trotter got back within six points of the lead with just under six minutes left. While Park Crossing scored the next two baskets, the Hornets responded with four points of their own, including a Schwallie transition layup that had Chelsea fans starting to believe down just 39-33 with 2:33 left.

The Thunderbirds took the lead back to eight at the other end of the court, but another pair of Trotter free throws and a Schwallie 3-pointer made it a one-possession game with 1:43 left. That sent the Hornets fans into a frenzy and forced a Park Crossing timeout.

However, that would be as close as Chelsea would get to the lead. The Thunderbirds quickly scored a pair of layups before going 4-for-4 at the free throw line to end the game on an 8-1 run and secure the state championship.

Trotter finished her Hornets career with another double-double thanks to her 18 points and 13 rebounds. Schwallie scored eight points and Brown had five points and four assists. Pryor played a big role around the court with six rebounds and four steals to go with her four points while Bass had four points and five boards.

After the game, Brown said that their experience in coming back from rough spots gave them the confidence to go try and do it one more time with everything on the line.

“Honestly, throughout the year, we’ve gotten down in situations and made runs like that,” Brown said. “So I knew we could do it, and we were doing it. It’s super tough, it’s hard to come back, but I feel like we all knew in that moment that we could, and that’s the biggest thing is just knowing that it can be done.”

“If you would have told me in the beginning of season when we were 11-8, I would have told you you were crazy, but just to be here, it is just kind of a wild moment,” Pryor said. “This will definitely not the last time you hear about the name Chelsea, because we have a great program and we have a great coach and we’ll continue to do great things.”

Pryor’s confidence comes from knowing the Hornets’ long road to the top, from 5-22 in the 2017-18 season to the continued growth since Harlow took over as coach, including regional final appearances in four out of the last five years across both 6A and 7A, two Final Four trips, and now their first map trophy.

As just a sophomore, Pryor will be one of those players to follow Trotter and Schwallie and build off their success and learn from their example, just like the Class of 2025 did for years prior.

“I just think we have tremendous players and high character kids, and I think they demonstrated that when they got down by 13 and didn’t quit,” Harlow said. “I think our senior class is a special group, and I knew that coming in this year. All three of these ladies here next to me are special, but I think Olivia and Caroline should really look at the senior class and their dedication and attempt to learn from it and grow upon what people like Haley Trotter have built here at Chelsea and girls like Sydney Schwallie and Jordan Parker. You’ve had a lot of good kids come through this program, and I feel confident that we’ll have more come through that are going to want to be the next Haley Trotter or Caroline Brown or Olivia Pryor. What they did was really, really special, and hopefully we can build on that foundation.”

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