HANCEVILLE - High school basketball players tend to remember their final game, for better or for worse, and Tammy West is no exception.
Back in 1988, West (then Tammy Welborn) was a senior at Good Hope High School when the Lady Raiders dropped their final game at Red Bay, bringing their season—and West’s high school career—to an end.
“It wasn’t close,” West recalled. “It was a blowout, and we were on the wrong side of it.”
Donnie Roberts was in his fifth season as Red Bay’s head coach in 1988, just one year removed from winning his first state championship with the Lady Tigers. He would go on to win three more state titles in a remarkable career that saw him inducted into the Alabama High School Athletic Association Hall of Fame in March of 2014.
That career—and Red Bay’s quest for a fifth state crown under Roberts—ended on Thursday night in Hanceville, as the fourth-ranked Lady Tigers watched a seven-point third-quarter lead slip away in a 39-36 loss to No. 5 Cold Springs in the semifinals of the Class 2A Northwest Regional. Seated on the home bench, now in the 25th season of her own outstanding career as head coach at Cold Springs, was Tammy West.
“Unbelievable,” West said of the legacy Roberts leaves behind. “His career is legendary. He’s a legend. He’s such a great coach, you know he’s had opportunities to leave and go somewhere else. But he chose to stay at Red Bay. And that just shows his dedication to that school and that community.”
Thursday marked Roberts’ 17th trip to Hanceville, and Red Bay has crossed paths with Cold Springs on several of those occasions. The most recent was in February of 2015, when the Lady Tigers prevailed 59-49 in overtime in the regional final on their way to winning state championship No. 4 under Roberts.
The Lady Eagles (28-4) struck back on Thursday night, taking control with an 8-0 run to open the fourth quarter and then surviving a pair of potentially game-tying three-point attempts by Red Bay (25-8) in the final ten seconds to earn a date with No. 3 Tanner in Monday’s regional final.
“It was a good game,” said West, who moved a step closer to what would be her fourth state title at Cold Springs. “I’m so proud of our girls. We got down early, and we know how hard it is to play from behind against Red Bay. We came back and got the lead, and it was just our girls making plays, getting [offensive] rebounds on free throws—hustle plays that you just can’t coach.”
Rebounding was a sore spot all night for the Lady Tigers, who allowed Cold Springs to grab 12 offensive boards and score 14 critical second-chance points.
“This was a heart-breaker,” said Roberts, whose team held the Lady Eagles to just 26-percent shooting in the first half and led 24-17 after a layup by Darby Madden less than two minutes into the third quarter. “I’m hurting for my girls. They’re hurting right now. They’ve done a fantastic job this year. They understand the reasons we got beat tonight.
“Our game plan was to take away their threes and make them put the ball on the floor. We gave up a couple of threes in the first half that we probably shouldn’t have, and we had a hard time all night boxing out our man and rebounding.”
Red Bay’s two previous opponents—Lamar County in the Area 14 final and Mars Hill in a sub-regional game—scored a combined 13 first-half points on 3-for-37 shooting. Cold Springs was better on Thursday night—but not by much, hitting 6-of-23 from the field and trailing 20-15 at the break.
West said a change in tactics and a more aggressive approach from leading scorers Emme Willoughby and Elizabeth Hill helped spark the second-half turnaround.
“We thought we would be able to get to the basket, because we knew they’d have to stay out on our shooters,” said West, whose team hit six of its first eight shots in the third quarter and finished the second half at 53 percent (10-for-19). “Emme did a good job attacking the basket in the second half. There were a couple of times where she looked at me and said, ‘What are we running?’ And I just looked right back at her and said, ‘What are you running?’
“She really took charge for us out there.”
Willoughby, a 5’10 guard and the team’s lone senior, shook off a 2-for-7 first half to score 10 third-quarter points, including a layup and a free throw at the 3:17 mark that tied the game 27-27. A free throw by Madden put Red Bay back in front, but then a driving bank shot by Willoughby gave Cold Springs its first lead since midway through the first quarter at 29-28.
“We gave up a couple of right-handed drives, and that hurt us,” Roberts said.
Madden drove the left baseline for a bucket in the final seconds of the third to put the Lady Tigers back on top by one, but Cold Springs answered with the decisive run to open the fourth. Hill, a 5’11 freshman guard, made a free throw to tie the game and then buried a three to make it 33-30 with 6:40 remaining. She then grabbed a defensive rebound off a miss by Madden and went coast-to-coast for a layup to push the lead to five.
After a turnover by the Lady Tigers (their third in four possessions to open the fourth quarter), Willoughby knocked down a pull-up jumper to make it 37-30 at the 5:00 mark.
Madden ended the run with a pull-up jumper from the right elbow, and then sophomore Reagan Kuykendall made 1-of-2 at the line to pull Red Bay within four at 37-33 with 3:57 remaining. Neither team scored again until Cold Springs freshman Neely Ellison got free for a layup to make it 39-33 with 1:05 left to play.
Senior guard Allie Kennedy missed a three on Red Bay’s ensuing trip, but an offensive rebound by Morgan Pierce led to another good look for Kennedy, who drilled a trey to cut the lead in half with 37.1 seconds remaining. Cold Springs then missed the front end of a one-and-one, leaving the door open for the Lady Tigers.
Kennedy missed a three with 10 seconds left, but a jump ball on the rebound gave possession back to Red Bay with 3.8 seconds on the clock. West called a timeout to set up her defense for the final play.
“We decided to leave the middle open and put two girls on Allie,” West said. “Then we put Emme on Darby, who’s also a good shooter, just to get some height on her. We didn’t guard the inbounds pass. If they got the ball in and then got it back to the inbounder, one of the girls on Allie was supposed to slide off and go find the ball.”
Pierce inbounded the ball to Madden, who was immediately double-teamed before passing back to Pierce in the left corner. Her three-point try missed long as time expired, and Cold Springs held on.
“Coach [John] Torisky drew up a play to get us a three-point shot,” Roberts said of the final sequence. “Of course, the first thing [Cold Springs] did when they came out was double-team Allie. But we had three or four people who could take that three. Morgan got a pretty good look. It just didn’t go in.”
Red Bay missed the mark too often in the second half, shooting just 6-for-20 from the field (including just 2-for-10 in the fourth quarter). Kennedy, who came in averaging 16.2 points per game, hit her first two three-point attempts of the night to give the Lady Tigers an early 6-5 lead, but she didn’t score again until connecting from deep with less than a minute left in the game. The All-State point guard and Southern Miss signee finished with nine points on 3-for-13 shooting.
“We were trying to slow things down so they’d have less possessions,” Kennedy said of Red Bay’s offensive approach. “I just didn’t attack the basket enough. I never got in a good shooting rhythm. I never really got in the flow of the game.”
Willoughby led Cold Springs with 17 points and seven rebounds, and Hill added 15 points and six boards. The Lady Eagles shot 38 percent (16-for-42) from the field and 4-for-7 from the line. They only turned the ball over four times and out-rebounded Red Bay 24-18.
Madden, a 5’11 post player, led the Lady Tigers with 14 points on 6-for-14 shooting in her final high school game.
“We all wanted to go all the way this year,” said Madden, a UNA signee who was MVP at the state finals as a sophomore when Red Bay brought home a Blue Map in 2015. “That’s just not how it worked out. We made some mistakes tonight, and that’s what got us beat. We had a great season, though. We’ll just try and keep our heads up.”
Kuykendall, a sophomore, finished with 13 points, seven of which came early in the second quarter and helped Red Bay open up an 18-9 lead. The Lady Tigers couldn’t make it stand up, however, and instead it was Cold Springs that moved on to Monday's regional final.
Afterwards, Red Bay’s Hall of Fame coach reflected on his impending retirement, which got started a couple of weeks sooner than he would have preferred.
“I’ll have plenty to keep me busy,” said Roberts, whose career at Red Bay has included 27 Franklin County tournament titles, 20 area championships and eight trips to the state finals. “I’ve got eight grandchildren. My boat’s been locked up for a while—I need to get it out on the water. I’ve been doing this for forty-five years [he spent 11 years as the head coach at Tremont High in Mississippi before coming to Red Bay in 1983], and I’ve enjoyed it. But it was time. It was my time.
"But I won't disappear completely. I'll still be around. I'll be a spectator next year."
And, perhaps, a coaching guru of sorts. He'd certainly have no shortage of former adversaries seeking his counsel.
"Maybe now I can finally ask him for some advice," West joked.
In the media room after the game, a sportswriter suggested that perhaps all the high-stakes battles between Red Bay and Cold Springs over the years—not to mention the seven combined state titles between the two head coaches—have cast Roberts and West as the high school hoops version of UConn women’s coach Geno Auriemma and late Tennessee legend Pat Sumitt.
“Oh, no,” West said with a laugh. “I don’t think so. On his side, sure. But not on my side. No way.”
