Pride’s ride
- Updated: February 14, 2024
Faith’ Christian’s latest regional run ends against Skyline, but a season that started with low expectations end with moon as a goal and ‘some stars.’
By Joe Medley
East Alabama Sports Today
JACKSONVILLE — Faith Christian’s season journey ended at Northeast Regional for the third year in a row, but the line draws through three dots.
There was the early season loss to Pleasant Valley, which caused third-year coach Cory Hughes to give a postgame speech that “almost got me fired.”
There was Class 1A unranked Faith’s the late-season upset of Class 4A No. 2 White Plains, about which Lions’ faithful will talk for years.
Then came the 59-32 loss to second-ranked Skyline in Wednesday’s Class 1A Northeast Regional semifinals, the ending of a 17-17 season that started 3-10.
“We stacked the deck against ourselves, playing such a juggernaut schedule this year,” Hughes said. “I set the moon as the goal for these guys, and they got some stars.”
The ending looked more like the beginning. Faith shot 28.9 percent from the floor. Skyline, which will play Spring Garden in Monday’s regional championship game, shot 76.9 percent in the decisive third quarter.
Freshman Conner Richerzhagen, the focus of Skyline’s game plan, got three shots in the first half and finished 1-for-9 for the game.
“We saw zero (Richerzhagen’s jersey number) beat White Plains,” Skyline coach Craig McKill said. “He hit 38 or something against them. That guy was en fuego. …
“We didn’t want him to shoot it. We wanted to know where he was the whole time. We know he’s a freshman, but that kid’s special.”
Carson Harris, one of two seniors, led the Lions with 13 points in his final high school game. Joseph Carroll added eight points.
Such was the end of the line. The journey?
That 59-55 loss at Pleasant Valley on Nov. 28 came amid an early season schedule that included Plainview, the first of two games against White Plains, two-time defending Class 4A state champion Jacksonville and just about every other higher classified team Hughes could schedule.
He was merciless in stringing together challenges for the Lions, so why not be merciless in stringing together words after losing to a team he felt the Lions should’ve beaten?
Richerzhagen, Harris and junior Colton Reese, seated around Hughes during Wednesday’s postgame, shook their heads when a reporter asked Hughes to elaborate on his “almost-fired” reference to that postgame speech at Pleasant Valley.
Like, you don’t want to know.
“Seriously, that was a guys-only talk,” Hughes said. “Because there are ladies in the room, I definitely wouldn’t say it.
“That wasn’t a speech,” Reese said. “That was a beating.”
Flash forward to Jan. 5, and Faith beat Pleasant Valley 63-43 at home.
On Feb. 2, the Lions hit nine 3-pointers in the first half, while reaching the peak of their potential at White Plains.
This wasn’t the Faith that made it to regional two years ago, led by the likes of Ethan Richerzhagen, Conner’s older brother, Jacques Prater and Thomas Curlee. This wasn’t the team led by Curlee and Yashua Arevalo that got back to regional last year.
“No task is too far to try and go for,” said Harris, who played two seasons at Faith after transferring from Oxford. “Reach for the stars, or reach for the moon, like he (Hughes) said.
“Nobody expected us, out of the past three years, to beat White Plains. Nobody before us has beaten White Plains. Nobody expected us to make it out of area before this season. Cory put it in our minds that we can go farther than we think.”
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