JACKSON

Jonathan Ashley wasn't hard to find late Thursday night. Myrtle High School's 31-year-old boys basket ball coach was sitting outside his team's dressing room at the Mississippi Coliseum sitting on a concrete floor, back against the wall, head bowed.

It had been nearly 30 minutes since his team accepted the second-place trophy, not the coveted gold ball, following its 73-71 loss to Coldwater in the MHSAA's Class 1A state tournament championship game.

Now, he was alone with his thoughts and one of those had to be: "This team overcame quite a lot to get here."

Ashley's team could have seen its season end a month ago - in a Tuesday night 4-seed vs. 5-seed game against Ashland in the Division 3-1A tournament.

His team hosted the North Mississippi tournament, but faced favored Shaw in the elimination-game quarterfinals ... and won.

His team, already a two-time loser to Coldwater, knocked off the favored Cougars to capture the North Mississippi championship and lock up a top seed in the state tournament.

His team played half of January and all of February without its leading scorer - Justin Jordan.

His team survived a 12-11 finish to the regular season after a 7-0 start.

Ashley's Hawks are the model for hoops survival.

"They're warriors," he said. "They could have quit a long time ago."

Instead, Myrtle reached the state championship game because a few behind-the-scenes things happened.

Youngsters progress

In the backcourt, eighth-grade point guard Robert Montgomery and sophomore shooting guard Russ Yates matured as the season progressed.

"I knew if that happened we had a chance to be pretty good," Ashley said.

Jordan's injury, a broken bone in his foot suffered during play in the Union County Tournament, also forced the Hawks to play more as a unit. Jordan was the leading scorer, the playmaker.

"All the sudden, he wasn't there," Ashley said. "They had to get tough or die."

Ashley's crew also bought into that time-proven coaching philosophy: Defense wins games. Down the stretch, Myrtle held a majority of its opponents to scores in the 50s.

"It got to be where we were pretty tough to score against. I think that was a major difference," the coach said. "It gave us the chance to keep playing."

In Thursday's title game, the Hawks' never-quit attitude gave them one last look at the basket in the final seconds, however they never got a shot off. Instead, a pass inside to Jordan was batted away by a Coldwater defender as the buzzer sounded.

"All we wanted was a chance in the fourth quarter and we had one," Ashley said as he watched his players exit the dressing room. "I've never been more proud of a group of kids.

"They could have quit. They didn't."

Gene Phelps (gene.phelps@djournal.com) covers high school sports for the Journal