How family bonds helped Tishomingo County girls basketball win its first state championship
For Tishomingo County girls' basketball coach Brian Middleton, this season was all about family. He made the decision to start eighth-grader Meg Moore alongside her sister, Reese Moore.
Middleton’s decisions proved to be the right ones, as the Braves easily defeated Morton 37-17 in the MHSAA 4A championship at the Mississippi Coliseum on Saturday.
It is the first state championship in football, basketball and baseball for Tishomingo County (30-3).
“We’ve worked so hard for this,” Brian Middleton said. “I kept preaching this week that 'this is your opportunity and today is the day to go do it.' We did not shy away from this, and for the last two years we thought we belonged at the top. We just kept figuring out how we were going to get there.”
Morton (29-3) had trouble stopping game MVP Reese Moore as she led all scorers with 14 points along with five assists and four steals. Her sister, Meg Moore, was the teams' second-leading scorer with 11 points.
“It is just crazy, you know,” Reese Moore said. “This doesn’t even feel real. It is just such a great feeling.”
Middleton said it was a no-brainer to bring up Meg Moore to start and made the decision early in the summer. Middleton said she belonged and made the Braves a better team.
“It is super special to share this with my sister,“ Reese Moore said. "It is very emotional. We played in the driveway growing up, always on the same team and to now play with her and get one, it feels great.”
Defense was the key for Tishomingo County. The Braves limited Morton to six points in the first half to lead by 13. Morton began the third quarter with a 7-0 run as Nazrin Lyles hit a layup and then on the next possession made a 3-pointer to make the score 21-13.
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After the game, father and daughter embraced with Baylon breaking down in tears, saying how hard it was at times to play for her dad this year.
“It’s been really fun," she said, "but at its roughest I didn’t think it would be like this. I hated practice every day for a while, and at some point it got better. I never thought that this would be it.”
“We’ve been through a struggle now, early in the season,” Brian Middleton said. “We didn’t quit and somewhere during the season it became real good. And it is really fun winning.”
This article originally appeared on Mississippi Clarion Ledger: Tishomingo County girls basketball tops Morton for first state title
