Savannah Schmidt
Mountain Brook's Maddie Walter (15) shoots a free throw during the Mountain Brook vs. Briarwood basketball game at Briarwood High School on Jan. 28, 2025. Photo by Savannah Schmidt.
The Mountain Brook High School girls basketball team is moving on to the Class 6A Northeast Regional final following its 71-51 win over Minor in the opening round last Friday at Jacksonville State University.
The Lady Spartans pushed to a double-digit lead and put forth a dominant fourth quarter to put the game out of reach. Mountain Brook, which made the state final four for the first time a year ago, looked like a team that had been at this stage before.
Maddie Walter led all scorers with 28 points in the contest, adding eight rebounds. Kate Bakken notched 12 points and Avery Davis scored 10 to join her in double figures. Davis filled up the stat sheet with five assists and four steals as well.
Mountain Brook will now move on to Fort Payne on Wednesday at 9 a.m. at Jacksonville State in the regional final. A win will send the Lady Spartans back to the final four.
Mountain Brook's boys fell to rival Homewood, 52-40, in the regional tournament on the same day. Homewood's defense locked the Spartans down for much of the game, allowing nine points or fewer in the second, third and fourth quarters.
Homewood's season ended at the hands of the Spartans each of the last two years, and the Spartans blew past the Patriots by 28 points in early December.
"Today, a lot of our defensive miscues in the first half and even into the second, they punished us on a lot of those different things," Mountain Brook head coach Tyler Davis said following the game. "The better team today won; we've had their number for a good while, but at the end of the day, they're moving on and we're going home. I'm proud of my team and nine seniors, and we got some good underclassmen. That's going to be a tough one for them to swallow, but when everything settles, I think they'll be proud of their careers when they look back on it."
Mountain Brook is accustomed to being at the final four and competing for state championships, but this year's team had a terrific run, posting a 21-8 record and consistently being one of the top 6A teams throughout the season.
"We ended up 21-8, had a tough schedule this year to get us ready for these games," Davis said. "It just wasn't our day today. I thought that Homewood had a great game plan, and I thought that their guys played fearlessly and they played confident, and that's a testament to Coach [Elijah] Garrison. We just made some little mistakes, and when you make mistakes in playoff basketball, usually you get exploited on it and you get punished."
