Hillcrest Moves on to Upper-State Final

As Tonya Smith hustled to get inside Hillcrest High's A.C. Duckett Gymnasium on Wednesday night to see her son play in the Upper State Class AAAA basketball semifinals, she fretted that she had already missed the tip-off and the first several minutes of action against the Spring Valley Vikings.

"I work in Travelers Rest and wanted to leave earlier," she said. "I told them at work, 'don't you know it's the playoffs!'"

In the end, though, it hardly mattered. Her son, star shooting guard and state AAAA Player of the Year Tre Smith, saved his best for last, scoring 14 of his 28 points in the final quarter to lead the Rams past the Vikings 68-65.

With the win, which came down to the wire, Hillcrest moved on to play against Irmo High School in the Upper State final Friday night at the BI-LO Center in Greenville and a chance to play for the state title next week in Columbia. 

Irmo, which advanced to Friday's Upper State final earlier in the week by beating South Pointe 62-59, toppled Hillcrest in the second round of the playoffs last year.

With the loss against the second-ranked and top seeded Rams, Spring Valley's season ended with a 18-10 record.

Spring Valley got up early in the game, but Hillcrest managed to crawl back and go ahead by as much as 15 and went into halftime up nine points.

In the second half, it was Spring Valley's turn to claw it's way back, using tenacious defense and dominant rebounding on both ends of the court to regain the lead late in the third quarter.

Then Smith, a McDonald's All-American candidate and Charleston Southern signee, took over the game for Hillcrest with his scoring and court leadership, giving the Rams the lead for good with 2:41 remaining.

“It kind of started getting to me that this could be the last game of my high school career,” Smith told the Greenville News after the game, “and that’s not the way I wanted to go out, with a loss in the third round.”

“He stepped up like he should,” Rams' coach Reggie Choplin was quoted as saying. “He’s a senior, the state player of the year, and he’s a competitor. We’ll ride his back as far as he can take us.”

Despite maintaining their lead, the Rams' victory wasn't settled until the final buzzer sounded, when an off-balance 3-point shot by P.J. Dozier, son of Spring Valley head coach and former USC great Perry Dozier, clanked off the rim as time expired.

Immediately following the win, students and fans stormed the court, as a group of students chanted, "We want Irmo!" The Rams will tip off against the Yellow Jackets Friday at 8:30 p.m.