Northeast Regional: Resurgent season ends for Lady Patriots
JACKSONVILLE – Friday afternoon’s game doesn’t do justice to the resurgence the Homewood High School girls basketball team experienced during the 2019-20 season.
The Lady Patriots ran up against Class 6A’s top-ranked team, Hazel Green, and fell to the juggernaut 60-24 in the Northeast Regional semifinals at Jacksonville State University’s Pete Mathews Coliseum.
Hazel Green (32-1) played methodically on offense and was downright suffocating on the defensive end. Homewood (25-4) had no answers for either.
“Hazel Green has obviously been one of the best teams in the state for a while,” Homewood head coach Kevin Tubbs said of the two-time defending state champions.
Homewood prefers to push the pace on offense, but the Lady Patriots began Friday’s game with a plan to slow the game down.
“We talked about getting the ball moving. It was the first time most of these kids had ever been here, so we tried to get them to calm down,” Tubbs said.
The plan only proved fruitful for a few minutes, as Hazel Green began forcing turnovers and took a 12-2 lead after a quarter of play.
It never got better for the Lady Patriots. They scored just one point in the second quarter and four points in the third. For the game, the team made just four field goals, all by Caidyn Cannon. Cannon finished with 13 points.
“We just didn’t play to our potential today,” Tubbs said. “For whatever reason, we couldn’t get any shots to fall, things went against us, and it snowballed.”
Tubbs’ postgame locker room speech had a clear message.
“Don’t let the way this one went take away from the season we’ve had, 25-4 and losing to a team that could very well be state champs again. There’s no disgrace in that,” Tubbs told his team.
Last season, the Lady Patriots did not win a game after Christmas and stumbled to the finish line. In Tubbs’ first year back at Homewood — he moved to Seattle after leading Homewood to the 2017 state title — the Lady Patriots got back to their winning ways.
Homewood rolled to an 11-0 start and only dropped games to Chelsea, Carver-Birmingham, McAdory and Hazel Green, each of them 6A teams that advanced to the regional tournament.
The Lady Patriots also went a perfect 4-0 in Area 10 play and won the area tournament with a 62-49 win over Huffman.
“We were really glad to get that again,” Tubbs said of the area title. “Obviously, we’re excited to get back to regionals.”
Homewood qualified for the regional tournament after missing out last season with a 46-28 win over Pell City on Feb. 10 in the sub-regional round.
The regional game also marked the conclusion of the careers of guard Kennedy Campbell and forward Kassidy Schnoer. Campbell stuck with the team despite not playing much early in her career and battling injuries last season. Schnoer took last season off but came back this year and put together a strong senior campaign.
“Kennedy pulled us out of the fire in several games this season with her shooting,” Tubbs said. “Kassidy Schnoer coming back out really changed this team. Quiet kid, comes to practice every day and does everything you ask.”
On Friday, Samiya Steele led Hazel Green with 20 points, while MaKenzie Hill had 18 points.
Hazel Green moves on to play Fort Payne in the regional final next Tuesday.