Landrum Cardinals, Lady Cardinals named co-region champs

Published 12:35 pm Tuesday, February 13, 2024

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LANDRUM—The Landrum Cardinals and Landrum Lady Cardinals basketball teams wrapped up their seasons last week with both involved in tie-breaking games to decide the 2A Region state playoff seeding.

On February 2, the Landrum boys defeated Greenville Tech Charter (1-15, 0-10) by a score of 91-48 thanks to junior Bennett Edwards’s season-high 36 points on 14 of 16 shooting from the field. 

The Region victory would propel them into a showdown on Tuesday, February 6, on the road versus fellow top 10 team in the 2A rankings, the Greer Middle College Blazers (21-5, 10-1), with a chance to win the Region outright with a victory. The Blazers upset the Cardinals 61-56 despite 24 points from Bennett Edwards forcing a tie-breaker game to decide the Region. 

The Blazers would then defeat the Cardinals 69-54 on Thursday evening at Landrum, giving the Blazers a #1 seed and Landrum #2 seed in the SCHSL 2A state tournament. 

The Cardinals (21-6, 9-2) were set to open their playoff run at home versus the Mid-Carolina Rebels (9-12) out of Prosperity, SC at 7 p.m. Tuesday, February 13. 

The Landrum Lady Cardinals would find themselves in a similar situation playing in a Region tiebreaker after an impressive 64-22 win over Greenville Tech Charter School (4-14, 1-9). Senior Kaylee Cortez would lead the team in scoring with 25 points, followed by senior Savannah Brown with 13 points.

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They followed it up with another blowout victory, 72-16, over Greer Middle College (5-16, 3-7). Cortez once again led them with 23 points along with Brown who had 16.

The win propelled the Lady Cardinals into a tiebreaker game at home for the Region 1 title versus rival Blacksburg (12-11, 9-2) on Thursday, February 8. The Cards would let a 19-point halftime lead slip away but hold on for a 54-52 win making them Region 1 co-champions and most importantly securing them a #1 seed in the SCHSL 2A state tournament. 

They would then turn around and win a Friday night makeup game against Chapman (16-8) 57-47 at home with Cortez scoring 22, Kylie Fortner scoring 17 and Savannah Brown scoring 11 points. The Lady Cardinals (23-3, 10-1) were set to open the playoffs at home versus Newberry on Tuesday, February 14.