Georgia no match for Tennessee in girls' all-star basketball game

Signal Mountain head coach Jason Hill saw no need to credit his coaching prowess for the end result of Tuesday's Tennessee-Georgia all-star girls' basketball game. All credit for that goes to AT&T, his wireless carrier.

After all, how else was he going to acquire so much talent in so little time?

After a slow start, the Tennessee girls outscored Georgia 89-32 over the final 23 minutes of the game. The final result -- a 100-52 victory -- represented the most points ever scored in the game. The 48-point difference was the largest margin of victory.

Six Tennessee girls scored in double figures, led by Bradley's Kayla Beavers, who was named the Most Valuable Player of the Game with 15 points, adding four steals. She also won the 3-point shootout at halftime. The Tennessee Player of the Game was Baylor's Megan Ausdran, who also had 15 points with five boards.

GPS's Simone Busby and Bradley's Caroline Smith each had 13, while Grace Academy's Kaitlyn Eldridge and Sequatchie County's Melanie Barker had 12.

Gordon Lee's Lil Bradbury received Player of the Game honors for Georgia, with 11 points and nine rebounds. Chattooga's Mariah Price also added 11.

"This was so much fun. I was glad I did it," Beavers, a Lee University signee, said. "This was my last high school game, and I had a lot of fun doing it."

Hill noted that extent of his coaching was "to call the girls and tell them what time to be here."

"The key was for us to get ahold of these girls early to commit," Hill said. "We didn't even have to go too far out of Chattanooga to get players; once we got the 10 players we had committed, I knew we wouldn't have any trouble."

There wasn't any fear when Georgia jumped out to an early 20-11 lead. A couple of substitutions, and future Lee University teammates Beavers and Barker hit three consecutive 3s. Beavers gave Tennessee its' first lead at 25-24 as part of a 14-4 run, a spurt that grew to 39-11 by the halftime buzzer.

Hill even started having fun with his substitution patterns towards the end, at one point subbing his five black players -- Busby, Whitwell's Halle Ware, Brainerd's Tiara Boston, GPS's Chadarryl Clay and Baylor's Amber Howard -- for the white ones, Beavers, Eldridge, Smith, Barker and Ausdran.

"It was something we tried a couple of times in practice," Ausdran said.

"It was a lot of fun for all of us. We'd played together in AAU, but to get together in this setting was a lot of fun."

Upcoming Events