Columbus girls ready for next step in Class 5A championship run

After Columbus defeated Starr’s Mill on Wednesday in the Class 5A semifinals, coach Rusty Oliver let his girls celebrate. After all, it was a come-from-behind win against the top-ranked team in the state, earning the Lady Blue Devils a trip to Saturday’s state championship game at Mercer University.

The celebration was just for that day. At midnight, he sent his players a message.

“Celebrating is over,” it said. “We have to start thinking about Saturday.”

On Saturday at 5 p.m. at Mercer University in Macon, Columbus will face McIntosh, winners of nine state championships in program history and the team that finished No. 2 to Starr’s Mill in Region 4-5A. It’s a similar challenge to Starr’s Mill, both in style and difficulty level, but one Columbus is ready to take on.

Columbus has been to the state championship game before. It went in both 2012 and 2013, losing to Allatoona in the former and Marist in the latter. For years, the program has been built from the ground up, and now they are ready for the next step.

“It’s not easy by any stretch,” Oliver said of making a state championship game. “We’re not taking that lightly. While we’re glad to be here, we want to take that next step. Our kids have put in the time, our upperclassmen have put in the years, and for all the kids who have contributed to this program for a decade and a half, we want to win it for them too.”

It started before the season.

Oliver reached out to a number of the top teams in the state, like he does every year, to try and schedule some difficult non-region games to prepare his team for the playoffs. Most years, a team here or there will bite and he’ll sprinkle in some elite games throughout the years. This year, though, everyone said yes.

It was like inviting people to a wedding, he joked. You send out so many invitations, praying that not everyone can make it. This season, everyone confirmed. And brought a plus-one.

The result was a less-than-stellar regular-season record. Owners of one of the toughest schedules in the state, Columbus managed just a couple of wins among those elite teams and stumbled to five losses in their final six games of the regular season. All along, Oliver tried to convince his players that there was a purpose to all of it.

“I kept asking them to believe in us and that something good would come out of it,” he said. “That was the justification, finally, to get the win the other night (against Starr’s Mill). I could say this is why we played those games. This is why we went through the pain of those losses, so that we could be resilient.”

And they have been.

Columbus trailed late against Starr’s Mill, only to score a goal in the final seven minutes and win in penalty kicks. They’re confident that resilience will stretch into the championship game.

“I think it helped a lot with confidence,” said junior Gigi Schorr, who was in eighth grade the last time Columbus made a state championship game. “I feel like if we can beat (Starr’s Mill), we can beat any other team.”

There are nerves, sure, Schorr admitted. But with a roster of players who have contributed since they were freshmen, such as Kimberly May and others, they have the experience necessary to compete with the best.

The keys, Oliver said, will be to prevent McIntosh from taking control early. He wants the team to play strong defense, but not get caught on its heels and not being aggressive. It needs to play a clean game, he said, have a plan, and execute.

“We’re going to prepare our players like we’ve done all season,” assistant coach Madison See said.

This story was originally published May 13, 2016 at 5:57 PM with the headline "Columbus girls ready for next step in Class 5A championship run."