She Got Next Christmas Classic – 2023

There may be a Christmas and New Year’s break for South Carolina students from an academic standpoint, but not much time is taken off athletically during the Holidays. That was proven from Dec. 20-22 when Aiken High School hosted the She Got Next Christmas Classic. Several teams from both South Carolina and Georgia took part with one of the Peach State teams being T.W. Josey – last season’s 2A GHSA state champions. Prep Girls Hoops made it to the home of the Green Hornets for the final day of the tournament. Who stood out from the junior class? Let us have a glance … <img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-368855" src="https://prephoops-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/pgh/uploads/2021/12/1E33E3A7-9C3E-4BF8-B5DB-002A6B3AC80E.jpeg" alt="" width="300" height="225" /> <strong>[player_tooltip player_id="158943" first="Amiyah" last="Ferguson"] – 2023 – Timberland HS</strong> – Ferguson is in her first season back with the Wolves after stacking quite a resume at Northwood Academy for her freshman and sophomore seasons. Apparently for Ferguson, She Got Next meant She Got Next to reach the 1,000-point plateau which is what she did when the Wolves took on Dutch Fork on Tuesday. What makes Ferguson so dangerous (and why she has been offered by Hampton, North Greenville and North Dakota) is she is every bit of a facilitator as she is a scorer. Ferguson moves the ball with efficiency, makes heads up plays on defense, can get from one end of the court to the other quickly, grabs rebounds, passes the ball well in transition and can score at will. She scored 12 points in a 77-61 victory over Georgia-based Hephzibah on Wednesday. <strong>[player_tooltip player_id="175386" first="Aaliyah" last="Lawrence"] – 2023 – Silver Bluff HS</strong> – For this season and next, anyone looking to earn victories over the Bulldogs has to figure out how to keep Lawrence off the stat sheet in either the scoring or rebounding categories. That has proven to be to be a tall task against the 5-foot-9 small forward. In the Bulldogs’ contest on Wednesday evening against Timberland – a 63-44 win over a team that played earlier in the day, Lawrence only scored four points in the first half before dropping 14 in the second half for an 18-point outing. Lawrence will get from one end of the floor to the other, can attack the rim from the perimeter and moves the ball efficiently. <img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-361189" src="https://prephoops-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/pgh/uploads/2021/12/2CDA4168-BD42-4001-892D-67AA764CF34D.jpeg" alt="" width="300" height="225" /> <strong>[player_tooltip player_id="234751" first="Tyra" last="Floyd"] – 2023 – Lower Richland HS</strong> – Head coach Aaron Lucas’ Lower Richland team does two (of many) things well – they score lots of points and their defense is so suffocating it is hard to put points on the board against them. Floyd is one of the Diamond Hornets’ primary scorers – and one way she does it is by being accurate with her 3-point shot. She made three 3-pointers in the Diamond Hornets’ victory over Dutch Fork, claiming the She Got Next South Bracket championship for Lower Richland. In that game, she finished with 13 points – 12 in the first half. Floyd also put up 12 points in the Diamond Hornets’ victory over Mauldin. <strong>[player_tooltip player_id="361185" first="Taniyah" last="Weston"] – 2023 – Lower Richland HS</strong> – In the Diamond Hornets’ She Got Next Lower Bracket championship game on Wednesday evening vs. Dutch Fork, Weston had a game that a coach would particularly give glowing praise to in a postgame locker room speech after a tighter contest. After scoring only two points in the first half, she added five more in the second half for a seven-point outing. Only [player_tooltip player_id="124093" first="Anala" last="Nelson"] (2022, Austin Peay) had more second half points in the win than Weston. A major reason why Weston had herself a second half was how she managed to draw contact and get to the free throw line.