Green with envy: girls with 0 seniors, Hernandez, grab 7th crown
The Lady Spartans overall talent shined bright, with three girls in doubles figures scoring, helping the Lady Spartans cruise late to the program’s seventh state crown.
This huge accomplishment was pulled off by a team coming back next year with the same talent — no seniors, only three juniors and two freshmen as Webb’s leading and third-leading scorers in this title game.
Despite the talents of Christian Presbyterian power forward Jane Ellis (game co-high 20 points) and post Jayda Robinson (16 points), Greg Hernandez’s West Knoxville girls pulled away late to win 61-47 Saturday afternoon, March 8, in Tennessee Tech’s Hooper Eblen Center. The other CPA players combined to score just seven points.
“Obviously we’re all excited,” said Meeyah Green, a state Miss Basketball Finalist junior wing who scored 19, 13 in the first half, leading Webb to a 27-21 advantage at the break after building as much as a 10-point first-half lead. “Last year we got (the) silver (ball),” losing to rival Knoxville Catholic in the state title game.
The keys this time “were how much work we put into this season and how much we play together and trust each other,” she added.
Zahnyah Rockett, Webb freshman point guard, scored a game-co-high 20. Freshman forward Kyndall Mays added 12 for Webb while pulling down a team-leading seven rebounds. “We put in so much work and I think that we really deserved it,” Mays said.
“To be able to do what we’ve done in the last two years, it just goes to show the culture and the sense of winning and expectations that Shelley (Collier, former head coach) set ...,” said Hernandez, in only his second year as head coach, leading his team — No. 1 ranked most of the 2024-25 season by Tennessee Sports Writers Association — to a 29-3 final record. CPA ended at 23-7.
Other Webb scorers were Harper Ladd with five, Ivy Napier three and Lorelei Lee two.
