Carsyn Swaney hoists the state championship trophy for the Heritage Lady Mountaineers, which beat the Northview Lady Cougars 63-43 in the TSSAA Class 3A state championship game at the Charles M. Murphy Athletic Center on Saturday, March 15, 2025, in Murfreesboro, Tennessee. (Photo by Danny Parker)
BY JESSE SMITHEY
MURFREESBORO — Rick Howard, the longtime head girls basketball coach at Heritage High, finally had to silence his phone Saturday night in the postgame press conference following the TSSAA Class 3A State Championship.
The pings of congratulatory text messages were coming that fast, that furious.
After almost 40 years of coaching, he’d finally won a title.
And Heritage, which opened in 1977, finally had its first state team championship in any sport.
Katelyn Graves scored 17 points, and tournament MVP Chloe Heath had 13 points with 16 rebounds, as Heritage downed Northview Academy, 63-43, without Heritage senior Carsyn Swaney.
Swaney, who got injured in the state semifinal win, played the final 37 seconds – and hit a 3 that nearly tore the roof off MTSU’s Murphy Center, the cheers from the Lady Mountaineer fans were that loud.
All told, four players for Heritage (35-2) reached double figures to help fill the gap in offensive production without Swaney.
“I’ve always dreamed of playing in a state championship,” Swaney said. “I was bummed yesterday I got hurt. It was a bummer. Today, my teammates said they were going to win it for me. I had hope in them. I knew that they would.
“I was telling Coach Howard, ‘Let me go in for 1 minute, 1 minute.’ He was like, ‘No, no. Wait, wait.’ To go in with 30 seconds left was a lifesaver. And to make that shot was just icing on the cake.”
DOWN THE STRETCH
Heritage led 36-23 at halftime but went 1-for-11 shooting with for just two points in the third, allowing Northview (33-5) to cut into the deficit.
And cut, they did.
Natavia Alber had the biggest slice, scoring on consecutive possessions in the paint for Northview and trimming Heritage’s lead to 38-33 with 1:16 left in the third.
Heritage showed life again when sophomores Katelyn Graves and Faith Morris sank 3-pointers from the wings in the opening minutes of the fourth to help rebuild the lead up to 49-38. Morris had 13 points. Graves scored 14 points and played a heroic role in the first half.
From there, Heritage coach Rick Howard deployed some stall ball, forcing Northview’s hand to chase and ultimately foul.
The Lady Mountaineers made five of their next six free throws to push the advantage to 16 with 2:51 to go.
“The first half, we came out and didn’t do what got us here,” NVA coach Brooke Shelley said. “That’s what we talked about at halftime, how they didn’t come out with the same energy, with the same intensity we had the last few games that got us to this point.
“We made some adjustments. We challenged them. In the third quarter, we had some momentum going our way. … We wanted this. We have no reason to hang our heads. … Obviously, we wanted gold. But what these girls did this season was pretty awesome.”
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HERITAGE OWNS FIRST HALF
Both teams were making their first-ever championship game appearances. But they had to wait a tad while longer Saturday to make those debuts, as a tornado warning in the Murfreesboro area caused a one-hour delay.
An MTSU signee and Miss Basketball finalist, Swaney went through pregame warmups and layup lines once everyone was allowed back in the area, but she did so with a substantial and prominent limp.
She left the state semifinal win over South Gibson on Friday with 6:54 left in the fourth quarter and never returned.
Her left ankle turned out to be badly injured.
Coker started in Swaney’s stead, and Coker’s steal and layup gave Heritage its first lead (9-7) at the 3:18 mark of the first. Her put-back score with 1:52 left in the first gave Heritage a 13-10 advantage. Coker didn’t score in Heritage’s quarterfinal or semifinal wins.
Not a bad start, given the absence of Swaney.
Senior forward Chloe Heath got going in the second quarter, scoring seven early points. Her 3-pointer with 6:17 remaining in the half put Heritage ahead 22-16. She added a layup shortly thereafter for a 24-18 lead.
Katelyn Graves’ baseline jumper gave Heritage a nine-point lead with roughly 3 minutes left in the half, and she added two fouls for a 30-19 advantage with 2:49 remaining.
Graves and Coker made layups in the final two minutes to help Heritage build a 36-23 lead by the break. The pair combined for 19 first-half points for the Lady Mountaineers.
“It was huge. It was unbelievable,” Howard said of Graves and Coker’s play. “They haven’t had to score a lot because Chloe and Carsyn average 20-something apiece.
“They were role players, but I told them that’s over. Everybody has a time in their life to shine, and I said, ‘You girls, this your time — to shine for these seniors and for me and our community.’ And they did. They didn’t let anybody down.”