RINGGOLD, Ga. — Asked to describe the importance of Tori Epps to the Heritage High School girls’ basketball team, head coach Greg Elkins needed but a second to reply.
“She’s our junkyard dog,” said Elkins, the comment quickly making his versatile senior guard laugh out loud.
“She’s a very unselfish player and does what this team needs. She was our point guard as a freshman, a stretch-four the last two years and back to the point this year. She is the ultimate lead-by-example player.”
The example that Epps has entrenched into her teammates has them one step away from making history. The 27-4 Generals are a win away from becoming the first Catoosa County program to win a state basketball title as they take on Sandy Creek in the Class AAA final Wednesday at 5:30 in Macon.
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The “junkyard dog” mentality may start with Epps, but it encompasses the entire team and the way the players approach any game. A Heritage game is usually far from a piece of art — unless you happen to enjoy defense.
The Generals believe a team can’t beat them if they can’t score. Winners of 14 consecutive games, they have allowed 35 points per contest during the run.
“Defense travels,” Elkins said. “We work on it religiously. An hour of every practice, which is usually two hours, is spent on defensive positioning, hands and feet. We re-visit our principles on what we want to do every day.
“The thing is, though, we can do this until we’re blue in the face, but if the girls don’t enjoy it, it’s not going to make a difference.”
It certainly did against Pickens, which jumped out to a 7-0 lead but managed just 28 more the rest of the way as Heritage forced 21 turnovers and often sped the Dragons up offensively into quick shots.
(READ MORE: Heritage puts the clamps on Pickens to advance to title game).
Epps, who is often tasked with guarding the other team’s top scorer, held Pickens’ star Ellison Steinhauer to 12 points, 11 of them coming after Heritage built a double-digit lead in the second half. Epps also led the Generals with 18 points.
“Every single day at practice we are playing defense of some sort, whether it’s scrimmaging or doing defensive slides,” Epps said. “There are a lot of teams that don’t want to do it. We just have a different type of mindset to how defense is played compared to other teams.
“Most players today are told if you score a lot you have a better chance of winning, but we believe it’s the other way around.”
Epps’ next defensive assignment is likely her toughest. Sandy Creek sophomore guard Morghan Reckley is, according to 247Sports, a 5-star recruit who enters the title game averaging 28 points, 7.4 rebounds, 5.4 assists and 4.7 steals for the 27-6 Patriots.
“Morghan Reckley is a big-time guard who is just special,” Elkins said. “But they’ve got complementary players who can shoot it and they’re all athletic. They pressure the ball 94 feet, and it’s kind of a snowball effect, because once it gets going they don’t stop.”
Epps will handle a large part of the ball-handling duties, but she’s got plenty of help on both ends of the floor, starting with fellow seniors Ema Tanner and Bailee Hollis and including junior guard Georgia Gracy, sophomore post Paisley Collins and an emerging group of reserves.
Together, they might fulfill their team goals and become school and county legends at the same time a year after a blown official’s call ended their chances in the Elite Eight.
“It’s sort of an out-of-body experience to be playing for a championship,” Elkins said. “We’ve worked really hard to get to this point. The girls were so devastated last year because we thought we could make a run, but that ripped our hearts out.
“Before the season, we had them write down two team goals and two individual goals. All of them wrote down region champions and most put deep playoff run or Final Four — and one put play for a championship.
“Just seeing it come true is unbelievable.”
Contact Lindsey Young at lyoung@timesfreepress.com
