Kirk's late free throws lift Lady Huskies to 1st state final
BIRMINGHAM — It’s been a long journey for Morgan Kirk, filled with ups and downs over the last five years.
The Hewitt-Trussville High School senior point guard has been with head coach Tonya Hunter every step of the way, playing as an eighth-grader in Hunter’s first season at Hewitt and growing into the unquestioned leader of the Lady Huskies locker room.
That journey could have ended on Thursday morning in the Class 7A state semifinals at Legacy Arena, but Kirk wouldn’t allow it. She sank four free throws in the final minute to help her team seal a 48-45 win over Auburn and lift Hewitt-Trussville to its first state title game appearance in program history.
Hewitt-Trussville will face the winner between Hoover and McGill-Toolen on Saturday at 4 p.m.
“Morgan’s been playing for five years, and this year she started leading a little harder,” Hunter said. “Yesterday, she got very emotional. She’s been with me the whole time here.”
Kirk prides herself at the charity stripe, but she had some uncharacteristic misses during the Northwest Regional last week. Fortunately, those misfires never cost the team.
“When I missed the ones at regionals, I was not proud of myself,” she said. “I shoot every day after practice, 100 free throws at least. If I don’t, my dad gets onto me. He knows how important they are. I just worked harder.”
Kirk made 6-of-7 shots from the free throw line on Thursday but brought much more than that to the floor. When the Lady Huskies got off to a sluggish start in the ball game, trailing 13-4 early in the second quarter, Kirk’s teammates looked to her for leadership in the huddle.
“We knew we needed to pick it up,” said sophomore Amiya Payne. “We believed in our leader. She kept us calm.”
Auburn secured six offensive rebounds in the opening period, and Hewitt-Trussville (21-10) struggled to get quality looks on offense. But the Lady Huskies settled in and even took a brief lead on Payne’s 3-pointer with 2:07 to go in the second period. Leah Harrison’s free throw knotted the game at 21-21 at halftime.
Payne led the way with 16 points in the game, while Harrison finished with seven points and four boards.
Kirk told her team in the locker room “it’s a new game.” They started much better in the second half as a result.
The Lady Huskies came out of the gates on fire in the third quarter, scoring the first six points. Auburn fought back and pulled to within a point, but the Lady Huskies finished the third period on a 9-1 run to take a 38-29 lead into the final period. On that run, D’yona Jones — who had a team-high 11 rebounds — scored in the paint, Payne converted a basket plus a free throw, Kirk stole a pass and took it for a layup, and Erica Jones capped it off with a bucket down low.
When the losses came more frequently than the wins in the season’s first month, Hunter asked her team to “get one percent better each day.” Erica Jones’ return from a knee injury midseason also helped the cause.
“I’d been wanting to come back for awhile,” said Erica Jones, who had 11 points and eight rebounds in the contest. “I wanted to come back and help my team make history.”
Hewitt-Trussville took its largest lead at 10 points, 41-31, early on in the fourth quarter. That’s when Auburn mounted one final push. Jada Askew capped off a 9-0 run with a layup to cut the deficit to one, 41-40, with 2:20 to play. But a D’yona Jones putback and clutch free throws from Kirk helped put the game away.
And because of that effort, the Lady Huskies are a game away from a blue map.
“That win explains her tenacity,” Hunter said. “She never quits. In the five years I’ve been here, it wasn’t easy. It was ugly at times. But she stayed the course, she stayed right there with me.”
Kirk maintained that steely focus as long as she could following the game, but the emotion caught up to her as she reflected on her final run in a Hewitt-Trussville uniform.
“Honestly, we just do it for each other,” she began, before pausing.
Continuing the thought, Hunter said, “It’s so emotional. Our vision, we saw it. Now, it’s right there. I’m speechless about it.”