Stonewall Girls Fall Short in State Title Game

The Stonewall Jackson girls basketball team had a season to remember. The Lady Raiders had a very solid regular season and then they stepped it up even more in the post season. Stonewall breezed through the district tournament and then made it to the Northwest Region title game against Forest Park. Stonewall would lose a close game to the Bruins, but both teams earned a trip to the state tournament at VCU in Richmond.

It was then that the Lady Raiders would play their best basketball of the season. People knew that Stonewall had a solid team, but not many people expected them to do what they did in the tournament. In the first round of the AAA State Tournament, the Lady Raiders topped Cosby High School 53-40.

That win put Stonewall into the semi-final game, setting them up to square off against West Springfield, a team that had lost only once all season. That didn’t phase the Raiders and they catapulted themselves into the state title game with a 47-42 victory over West Springfield. This meant that Stonewall would be making their first ever appearance in the state title game.

Stonewall had to face off against Princess Anne, who dominated Forest Park in the semi-finals, for a chance at the state title.  Princess Anne has been a power house in girls basketball for a while now and has won multiple state titles. The Stonewall girls knew going into the game that it was going to be an extremely tough match-up  as the star player from Princess Anne is a 6 foot 3 inch center who is going to Duke University to play next year.

The Lady Raiders came out and fell behind early as Princess Anne outscored Stonewall 22-2 in the first quarter. The Raiders showed no signs of giving up though as they came back in the second quarter and outscored Princess Anne 15-12. Stonewall still trailed 34-17 at the half.

Princess Anne came out and controlled the third quarter, outscoring Stonewall 16-7 to make the score 50-24 after three quarters. The Raiders knew that a 26 point deficit was likely not going to be wiped away, but they were not going to go down without a fight.

Stonewall played tough in the final period and each team tallied 15 points in the quarter. The final score ended up being 65-39 in favor of Princess Anne. It was a lopsided game, but Stonewall had an outstanding season, making it to the state title game where they were simply over-matched. Princess Anne was noticeably better than all of the other teams in the tournament so Stonewall did extremely well just to make it to the title game.

Stonewall was led in the state tournament by very solid performances from Joy Caracciolo and Necole Sterling. The two star players each had big games in the tournament to help lead the Lady Raiders to the title game. Stonewall also got solid performances from Danielle Burns and Amanda Hinton who each played a big role in the success of the team.

 Although Stonewall came up just short of a state title, the Raiders had an extraordinary season and made their school and their community extremely proud. Many people from Manassas, including people from other schools in the area, traveled to Richmond to support the Lady Raiders as they attempted to make history.

Everyone was extremely supportive and those people are also very proud that a team from the northern Virginia area made it as far as Stonewall did. The Lady Raiders will be looking to have a productive off-season before attempting to make another run next year.