‘How lucky am I?’: Family connections make for special Cold Springs Senior Night

Published 11:03 pm Thursday, January 28, 2016

COLD SPRINGS — Coach mode and mom mode have never intersected as much as this week for longtime Cold Springs girls basketball leader Tammy West.

County championship celebration one day. Senior Night the next.

Oy vey for a woman with a giant heart who’s quick to shed a tear at the thought of those she loves the most.

That holds especially true for West’s daughters, Bailey, Toni and Hayden — who all played a special role in Cold Springs’ 59-29 win over Vinemont Thursday evening inside Jesse George Gymnasium.

On the court together, for the first time competitively, were Bailey, a senior, and Toni, a seventh-grader. And on the bench was an all-too familiar assistant in Hayden, who’s not all that long removed from playing under West’s wing herself.

West claimed with a straight face during Wednesday’s cutting of the nets she wasn’t going to cry on Thursday night.

Liar, liar, pants on fire.

To her credit, she held off the tears until the Senior Night ceremony.

“How lucky am I, to have all my girls on the bench with me?” asked a beaming West.

For the majority of the second quarter, two of the three girls took the floor together, too. Bailey and Toni weren’t the only sisters to do so, though, with senior Kaleigh Merring and her ninth-grade sibling, Kyleigh, also sharing the same court for the first time.

Throw one more senior into the mix, and Bailey and Kaleigh couldn’t have drawn up a more ideal lineup.

“Being able to have Rilee (White) out there with us, she’s like my other sister,” Bailey said. “It’s all a big family.”

The young’uns didn’t produce any points in the second quarter — despite Bailey’s best efforts to set up Toni — but the Merrings had their moment midway through the third. Kaleigh found Kyleigh in the corner, and the freshman didn’t miss, cranking up the crowd with a deep 2-pointer.

Kaleigh finished with eight rebounds, but that one assist meant more to her than any other stat ever could.

“I was like, ‘Please go in, please go in,'” she recalled. “It went in, and I was like, ‘Hey, Kyleigh, remember that was me, that was me (laughs).'”

Toni’s time came in the fourth frame. The middle-schooler notched her first basket with a nice drive on the baseline and added another shortly thereafter with the last of Cold Springs’ 14 3-pointers.

Bailey couldn’t miss from outside to open the game, with five makes on five attempts in the first three minutes alone. An Emme Willoughby trey in between gave Cold Springs six straight to start the county clash, and a pair from Camryn Crider and one from Kinley Campbell upped the home team’s first-quarter total to nine.

Bailey, who received her 1,000th-point ball after the game, led all scorers with 17 points. Willoughby was close behind with 14, and Crider completed the double-digit club with 11. The trio combined for a 12-of-17 clip from behind the arc.

“It’s going to be so weird for me next year,” Bailey said. “Because, you know, I’ve been on that bench since i was like 4 years old with mom.”

Campbell, Thursday’s homecoming queen, matched White and Toni with five points. Kyleigh had the two.

The plan to send out both sets of sisters stemmed from the 1990s, when West took advantage of a chance to get all three of “the Graves girls” on the court at the same time.

“I knew what that meant to their mom, dad and their family,” the coach said. “And I always said, ‘Oh, I hope I can do that someday.’ It just worked out tonight I could get Bailey and Toni and Kaleigh and Kyleigh out there together.”

Kaleigh was beyond thankful for the opportunity.

“We’ll never forget it,” she said.

Bailey, Kaleigh and White were recognized during the senior walk-out between varsity games.

“This class will be missed,” West said.

Kelsey Rogers capped off a solid shooting night with 10 points for Vinemont. Laura Smithson and Zoe Thomas each touted six points, Sarah Smith and Leigh Ann Smithson both added three, and Andrea Diemert drained a free throw.

Class 2A No. 6 Cold Springs (18-10) will keep it in the family next Tuesday with a trip to West Point, which is coached by West’s brother, John Welborn.

Vinemont will host Fairview the same night.

Varsity Boys

Cold Springs 56, Vinemont 27

Cold Springs pulled out two wins Thursday despite only playing a single game.

Now just how does that work?

Count the afternoon’s coin toss, and the scenario starts to a make a lot more sense.

Cold Springs’ biggest victory of the day came against Tanner in a flip that decided hosting rights for the upcoming 2A, Area 14 Tournament. With principal and former coach Tim Burleson standing by for the Rattlers’ failed tails call, the Eagles will welcome second-seeded Tanner, No. 3 Addison and No. 4 Falkville Feb. 11 and 13 for the sub-regional qualifying event.

Cold Springs and Tanner were left to the tiebreaker after sporting identical 5-1 area records with their lone losses against each other. The Eagles took the first meeting, at home, by a comfortable 78-65 cushion and lost the rematch 56-47.

The Eagles and Rattlers are third and seventh, respectively, in the state’s 2A rankings.

Cold Springs (19-7) had no problem rebounding Thursday from a tight loss in the county championship game the previous night.

Triston Chambers and Josh Freeman teamed up for the first 15 points of Cold Springs’ game-opening 18-0 run. Jesse Lee accounted for the final three, converting an and-1 opportunity after taking a slick behind-the-back pass from Chambers and concentrating through contact to lay it in.

Chambers and Freeman ended up with 19 and 17 points, respectively. The former also collected eight rebounds. Blake Wood (five points), Eli Hamby and Hunter McClendon (four apiece), Lee and Cayde Elliott (both three), and Tyler Rice (one) rounded out Cold Springs’ offensive contributors.

Senior Keelan Davis swiped three steals on defense.

Chambers, Freeman, Rice and Davis were each highlighted during Senior Night festivities.

Garrett Boland paced Vinemont with nine points. Hunter Green was next with six, followed by Hunter Cleghorn (four), Corbin Barnett (three), Zac Thomas (two), Seth Campbell (two) and David Flores (one).