The Lady Raiders will not be involved in any playin games this postseason. Three Rivers College beat Jefferson College 75- 50 on Saturday at the Bess Activity Center, and in doing so, will be one of the top two seeds in the upcoming Region XVI Tournament. Crowder and State Fair, which both have two region losses, play each other on Wednesday.
Three Rivers (21-5, 7-1 Region XVI), even if it losses its final two region games at Mineral Area and Crowder, would still own the No. 2 seed tiebreaker over either State Fair or Crowder. The determining tiebreaker, in either instance, would be Three Rivers' season sweep of State Fair. "We need some help so we can just go ahead and knock that out of the situation," Three Rivers coach Jeff Walk said of earning the top seed. Saturday's win over Jefferson also means the Lady Raiders will earn a bye in the tournament for the first time in Walk's nine seasons as head coach. After a back and forth first quarter that had five lead changes, the Lady Raiders went on a 15-2 run and led by at least 10 points the rest of the game. Jefferson scored to open the second quarter, cutting Three Rivers' lead to two points, then Markeia Porter kicked off the run with a bucket through a foul. Ge'naisha Robinson followed with a 3, and Michael Everhart tacked on a threepoint play that gave Three Rivers its first double-digit lead. Joya Smith added a pair of buckets and Everhart polished off the run with a 3 that put the Lady Raiders up 15, and had Jefferson calling timeout. "When you have a pressing team, things just click," Walk said. "The next thing you know, you get them in a feeding frenzy and it's over. That's typically how we've won most of our games. It has just been those feeding frenzies throughout the course of the game." Joya Smith finished with 15 points, 20 rebounds and five steals, new career bests in all three categories. She also had four blocks. She had 10 offensive rebounds, which was four more than anybody else on the team had total rebounds. "We saw out of Joya what will get us to the next level when she was attacking off the dribble on the wing. She'll stop herself from scoring before anybody else will," Walk said. Added Smith, "That was probably my best game here so far, but there is probably more here that can be done."' It was Smith's fourth double-double. Robinson was 5 for 9 on 3-pointers and led all scorers with 24 points. "You know what you are going to get when (Robinson) goes. She is going to get hers," Walk said.
In an unusual string of events, a fan was ejected in the third quarter, Three Rivers was called for an "Administrative Technical foul" and the police were called. The Lady Raiders were up by 14 midway through the third quarter when one of the three referees stopped the game and ejected a fan. After initially refusing, Walk went over to the stands and the man voluntarily left. He made a comment as he was exiting, and the ref issued the technical foul. While Walk has had fans ejected now and then in his 29 years as a head coach at the high school and college level — even ejecting some himself as the Twin Rivers athletic director — he said he has never seen a ref call an administrative technical foul. According to the NJCAA rules, the foul is focused on punishing delay of game instances. On Saturday, it was issued at the same time as the fan was walking out of the gym. Three Rivers was up 12 after Shannyn Triplett made both technical foul free throws, and added 10 points to its lead in the closing 4 minutes of the quarter.
"We had three or four stoppages of play in the second half. It didn't affect the girls," Walk said. "That's what you want to see." Saturday marked the final home game for Three Rivers sophomores Robinson, Everhart, Jay Perry, Camdyn McDaniel, Joya Smith, Jalisa Smith and Destiney Williams. "When they came in as freshmen, we weren't very good," Walk said. "They took a chance. They had a little faith in (assistant) coach (Sheronda) Powell and myself. Coach Powell did a great job that year getting out and getting these kids in here. She spent a lot of nights away from home. Then these kids stuck with it. "You call them program changers. They come in and help get us back to where we want to be. Without them taking a chance and having faith in the coaching staff, the school and the community, we're not sitting here 21-5." Walk added that this sophomore class is on par with class of 2014 that included Anna Vogt, Macy Wright and Erin Bollmann. "They were equally good, and they were equally good at different things. We played a totally different style with Anna," he said.