What a feeling it must have been for Jawan Bailey when the final horn sounded at the Macon Coliseum and his Josey Girls basketball team claimed the program’s first state crown since 1998.
The title game was a microcosm of Josey’s entire season. The Lady Eagles battled through adversity all year to fight and claw their way to the Class-AA championship game only to find themselves trailing Fannin County 35-20 midway through the third quarter.
However, like they did all year for Bailey, the young team dug deep and found a way to battle back to claim the title with a 47-42 win. The victory has to be extra special for Bailey, who was a three-sport standout for the Eagles during his prep career and was tasked with rebuilding the once-proud
program when he took over prior to the 2013-14 season.
For so long, when you thought about Josey girls basketball, you thought about Lynn Brantley. Brantley roamed the sidelines for 38 years, leading the school to a state championship in 1998 and retiring in 2007 as the all-time winningest coach in Georgia with an astonishing 754 wins to 249 losses. Following her retirement, the program sputtered. The Lady Eagles had just one winning season over the next six years.
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That’s when Bailey was hired to take over the team. As a player, Bailey was known as a great athlete at Josey, but he matured during his time at Albany State. He walked on to the men’s basketball team as a freshman but played sparingly.
He spent that season truly learning the game of basketball. He cracked the starting lineup the following year and never relinquished the spot. He used his competitive fire and knowledge of the game to lead T.W. Josey to three consecutive state playoff appearances in his first three years at the helm from 2014-2016.
Over the last six seasons, he has built Josey into a formidable opponent for anyone in the state compiling a 131-42 record in that span, averaging 22 wins per season. He also had the team one win away from a state championship in 2018, but they lost in the finale to arch-rival Laney.
This year’s team was an interesting mix of players. Like everyone, Josey had to deal with COVID-19 and all the issues that brought forward. The Lady Eagles were also extremely young, with only two seniors on the roster. After the first eight games, Josey was 3-5 and appeared more like a doormat than a title contender, but that’s when something clicked for the squad.
Bailey knew they had to amp up the defense if they wanted to make the state playoffs. His team did just that. After yielding 50 points per game through the first 8 contests, Josey would not allow a single opponent to score more than 49 points the rest of the season. Over their final 18 games, they were 17-1 and allowed only 36.8 points per outing. Their only loss was a two-point heartbreaker to Butler in the region title game.
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Another aspect of this year’s team that Bailey has to be thrilled with was their unselfish nature. No player averaged over 11 points per game this season. They were extremely balanced with sophomore Arieonna Booker, junior AQ Cody, junior Ky’Shonna Brown and senior Deaja Houck each averaging between 9 and 11 points per game.
Houck and senior guard Jamirah Mitchell provided outstanding leadership and the rest of the team fed off of their “never say die” attitude and the results speak for themselves.
To overcome a tough set of circumstances in 2020-21, a 3-5 start to the season, and a 35-20 deficit in the second half of the championship game takes a ton of moxie. Luckily, that’s something Jawan Bailey has a large supply of.
He had some huge shoes to fill when he arrived back on campus 8 years ago. Now he is setting the bar extremely high for the future Josey girls Head Coaches to come.
At press time, Cross Creek’s girls and boys Teams are preparing for their Class-AAA title games. Hopefully, we will have to do a full story on a pair of Razorback state crowns.
Ashley Brown covers sports for The Augusta Press. Reach him at Ashley.brown@theaugustapress.com
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