RED BAY - When Donnie Roberts calls the gymnasium at Red Bay High School his second home, he’s not exaggerating.
“I remember those first five years I was here, driving back and forth from Tremont,” said Roberts, a graduate of Tremont (MS) High who spent 11 years as the head coach at his alma mater before crossing the state line and taking the Red Bay job in 1983. “There were nights when I didn’t even go home. I just spent the night in the gym.”
Following Monday night’s 60-36 sub-regional rout of Mars Hill, after being presented with the game ball by his wife Janet and several other members of their extensive family, Roberts took a moment to get down on all fours at mid-court and kiss the floor. Then, just for good measure, Roberts (now in his mid-60s and nearing the end of a 45-year coaching career) fired off a couple of quick push-ups before clambering back to his feet.
“Just to show the girls that I can still do it,” Roberts said. “I’ll tell you what, though—I was struggling.”
In retrospect, Roberts should have squeezed in one more rep, just to match the number of first-half points his team allowed in Monday’s surprisingly easy win. Mars Hill (17-12) was supposed to provide a stiff test for Red Bay, but the Lady Panthers missed 18 straight shots at one point and finished the half just 1-for-20 from the field. The fourth-ranked Lady Tigers (25-7) were never seriously threatened after the first quarter and cruised to their seventh consecutive berth in the Northwest Regional, where they will face No. 5 Cold Springs (27-4) in a titanic semifinal showdown on Thursday at 6 p.m.
Standing amidst the post-game throng, two members of Roberts’ final senior class reflected on Monday’s post-game ceremony and what it’s been like to play for the Hall of Fame coach.
“That was pretty emotional,” said point guard Allie Kennedy, who scored 19 of her game-high 21 points in the second half. “We’ve been through everything together. We’ve been through the tough times, and we’ve been through the good times. I just wanna thank Coach Roberts for everything he’s done for me. I am where I am as a player today because of him.
“It’s been an honor to play for him.”
Senior post player Darby Madden, who combined with Kennedy to score all 28 of Red Bay’s third-quarter points on Monday, echoed those sentiments.
“Coach Roberts has made me a better player and a better person,” Madden said, adding that there was “no way” the Lady Tigers were going to lose Roberts’ final home game.
Still, a 19-3 lead at the half? Over a Mars Hill team that had topped the 60-point mark eight times this season, including a 70-50 thumping of Class 3A, No. 8 Colbert County not two weeks ago?
“We came into the locker room at halftime,” Madden said, “and Coach Roberts told us that in his forty-five years of coaching he’s never had a team give up less than we did tonight in the first half. So that was a big honor, too.”
The Lady Panthers actually scored the first points of the game on a driving layup by Anna Steadman with a little more than two minutes gone by in the first quarter, but they clanked their final 18 attempts of the half and didn’t make another field goal until freshman Neely Johns drilled a three on their opening possession of the third quarter.
Red Bay, allowing an average of just 38.0 points per game on the season, held Mars Hill to 26 percent shooting (11-for-43) on the night and—unlike in last Thursday’s area final win over Lamar County—dominated the defensive glass, out-rebounding the Lady Panthers 24-14.
“Our defense was great tonight,” said Kennedy, who finished with four rebounds, four assists and three steals to go along with her ninth 20-point game of the season. “We wanted to make sure we got in the gaps, because we knew they liked to drive. We wanted to contest every shot. We came out ready to play. We knew this was win or go home."
The road to another Blue Map—it would be Roberts’ fifth state title at Red Bay—is fraught with danger, starting with Thursday’s matchup against an explosive Cold Springs team that scorched Altamont 87-42 in a sub-regional rout. Still, if Kennedy and Madden can bottle what they were brewing in Monday’s third quarter, the Lady Tigers might not go home for a while.
"We talked at halftime about what we wanted to do on offense in the second half," Madden said, "and then we came out and executed. We did what Coach Roberts and Coach [John] Torisky told us to do, and we just got in a rhythm."
Kennedy's explanation for the third-quarter fireworks was a little simpler--and a lot cooler.
"I just looked at Darby and nodded," she said, "and it was over."
The 5’9 Kennedy opened the quarter with one of her patented pull-up jumpers, a shot that even Madden openly admires.
“She shoots just as good off the dribble as she does on the catch,” Madden said of Kennedy, who went over the 500-point mark for the season on Monday and is averaging 16.2 points per game. “She’s a really good shooter on the move. That’s one of the things that impresses me the most about her game.
“She’s a great player, and it’s been an honor to play with her these last few years.”
The feeling, according to Kennedy, is mutual.
“Darby is a really unselfish player,” Kennedy said of the 5’11 Madden, who also went over the 500-point mark for the season on Monday and is averaging 16.5 points per game. “She knows when to shoot, and she knows when to kick it out. She can score, she can pass, she can rebound and she plays good defense. She really does everything well.”
After a slow start in Monday’s first half, Madden got rolling in the third quarter. She knocked down a three from the right wing at the 6:40 mark to make it 25-9 and then stroked a 17-footer from just above the foul line less than two minutes later. Steadman scored on a layup for Mars Hill, but Kennedy responded with another pull-up jumper at the 4:30 mark to make it 30-13.
Moments later, Kennedy received an inbounds pass on the right wing, dribbled hard to her left to shed a defender and buried her 50th three-pointer of the season, stretching the lead to 33-15.
“Practice. Lots of practice,” Kennedy said when asked to explain the origins of her next-level shooting skills off the dribble. “Hours and hours in the gym.”
Kennedy is more comfortable moving to one side rather than the other on her pull-up jumpers, but she was reluctant to say which—understandably so, with monster games looming against Cold Springs and perhaps third-ranked Tanner (28-2) at the regional. The less those opponents know, the better, though it’s unlikely that any amount of advanced scouting could have helped Mars Hill slow down Red Bay’s dynamic duo on Monday.
Kennedy (6-for-7 from the field) and Madden (4-for-5) combined to miss just two shots in the third quarter, out-scoring the Lady Panthers by themselves 28-16. Madden then opened the fourth quarter with a pull-up jumper [imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, after all], and Kennedy converted a pair of steals into two easy layups as the lead swelled to 34 points at 53-19. Shortly thereafter, Roberts summoned his four senior starters—Kennedy, Madden, guard Carlee Humphres and forward Morgan Pierce—to the bench, where they soaked in the last few minutes of their final home game.
Kennedy finished the night 9-for-12 from the field, and Madden shot 6-for-8 from the foul line and had 19 points. The ever-reliable Pierce scored all nine of her points in the first half, helping Red Bay assert control while the Lady Panthers threw a gimmick defense at Kennedy and all the size they could muster at Madden. Pierce also pulled down five rebounds, and Humphres had two points.
Sophomore Reagan Kuykendall added five points and five boards for the Lady Tigers, who overcame a tough-shooting first quarter to finish the night at 47 percent.
Overcome with emotion during the post-game ceremony after receiving a standing ovation from both Red Bay and Mars Hill fans alike, Roberts struggled to process the significance of having coached his final game in the gym he’s called home for more than three decades.
“I don’t have the words,” he said.
Madden—yet to run out of ammunition in the speech department—had a few choice words following Monday’s impressive performance.
“Four more to go,” she said. “We’ll see you in Hanceville, and we’ll see you in Birmingham.”
