For all of the important baskets Kennedy Houston has made in three seasons as a starting guard for Centennial’s girls basketball team, the junior admitted she did not get the best look at her biggest shot in the City League final.
Houston stripped the ball from an Africentric player near midcourt in the final 10 seconds Feb. 14, drove into the lane and banked in a layup as she fell to the floor with 5.5 seconds left for what turned out to be the winning basket of a 49-47 victory at East that gave the Stars their second consecutive City title.
Houston finished with 30 points, including the last five of the game.
“When I got the ball, I sprinted to the paint, looked left and right and didn’t see any white [uniforms of my teammates] so I knew I had to go get a bucket,” she said. “I was just praying. I just prayed it went in. I had to get that.”
Africentric senior guard Jeniya Bowers got a good look at a tying jumper from the right block, but her 10-foot shot hit the back of the rim and bounced off as time expired.
That capped the third consecutive City final between Centennial (17-1) and Africentic (17-4), one which featured eight ties, eight lead changes and matching 7-0 runs in the fourth quarter.
“Kennedy will get those points the hard way,” Centennial coach Ernest Bell said. “She is our ‘Miss Do-It-All,’ our Swiss Army knife. We knew going to the basket, if we got a shot, she was going to make it. But her hard defense led to that shot.”
Africentric’s lead peaked at 43-37 with 5:29 left, but Centennial responded with a 7-0 burst for a 44-43 lead at the 4:12 mark.
Sophomore guard Me’Kayla Broady’s two free throws and a layup from senior forward Jae’Veyonna Brown put Africentric ahead 47-44 with 2:15 left, but the Nubians missed both of their field-goal attempts the rest of the way.
Houston banked in a game-tying 3 with 35 seconds left.
“We just had to take the game over when things got tough,” Houston said.
For a while, it appeared both teams were content to let the opposing standout players get their points as long as they contained everyone else.
Bowers and Brown combined for 20 of Africentric’s 22 first-half points, and Houston had 16 of the Stars’ 21.
But the supporting casts emerged thereafter.
Centennial junior guard Isabel Tucker scored all 10 of her points in the second half, including two 3-pointers.
Africentric sophomore guard Janiya Robinson also had 10 in the second half to take some pressure off Bowers and Brown, including layups to start and finish the Nubians’ 7-0 run that spanned the third and fourth quarters.
“They put a lot of focus on Kennedy and that’s how the rest of us got to show up,” said Tucker, a move-in from Hilliard Bradley. “They are pretty big [inside] so I just had to go take outside shots.”
Bowers and Brown finished with 18 and 10 points, respectively, as Africentric – coming off its 11th straight City-South Division championship – fell short of its 17th City title in 21 years.
Tied with Walnut Ridge atop the South most of the regular season, the Nubians defeated the Scots twice in less than a week, including 66-25 on Feb. 10, to return to the final.
“We expected it to be a hard-fought game … but you have to make big plays down the stretch,” Nubians coach Shar Harris said.
Houston and Tucker were the Stars’ only scorers in double figures, but they won their 45th game against a City League game in 46 tries dating to the 2022-23 season. The only loss came to Africentric in the 2023-24 final.
Centennial has won 41 in a row in North Division play.
Bell admitted this championship feels considerably different from the program’s first a season ago.
“Last year was just getting the 1,000-pound gorilla off our back,” Bell said. “This year is the icing on the cake. We wanted to do this again, prove we weren’t a one-trick pony.”
High school sports reporter Dave Purpura can be reached at dpurpura@dispatch.com and at @dp_dispatch on X.
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Kennedy Houston fuels Centennial basketball’s City League title repeat
Reporting by Dave Purpura, Columbus Dispatch / The Columbus Dispatch
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