Eastside seniors Laila Harvey and Kristen McBride ran the play for years.
Ever since they were playing basketball together at Greenville Middle, they loved executing their favorite inbounds play together.
McBride stands out of bounds near the bench. Harvey starts running from near the top of the perimeter on the opposite side of the court. McBride launches a football-style pass over every defender, hitting her senior partner in stride for the easy layup.
Unfortunately, they hadn’t yet had the chance to run that play during their senior year.
“Kristen and I have been playing together since we were in seventh grade. We’ve had that inbounds play since the seventh grade,” said Harvey. “We just haven’t been able to run it yet this season.”
Slightly poetic that against Fort Mill in round two of the Upper State playoffs — in the most important moment of the season — the time to run that play finally came.
With the Lady Eagles up 56-54 and just 20 seconds to play, Eastside needed a bucket to seal their first playoff win since 2022-23. McBride and Harvey had already orchestrated an eight-point comeback in the fourth to take the lead.
Head coach Nikki Young decided to put the game in their hands when it mattered most.
“Our seniors were the ones who led us at the end of the game,” said Young. “So we had that [inbounds] play stored in the playbook, specifically for times like this.”
And just like it’s worked since the pair of seniors were standouts for the Greenville Middle Lady Rams, it worked again on Saturday night. McBride launched. Harvey caught. The senior center gathered and downed the layup.
Ballgame.
Eastside senior Kristen McBride launches an inbounds pass to fellow senior Laila Harvey for the game-sealing bucket.
“That play always works in practice, and it always worked back in middle school,” said McBride. “So to actually be able to use it in a game, and for it to work the way it did, that was amazing.”
Harvey embraced McBride after the bucket. In a year where Eastside has caught headlines for being one of the youngest teams in the state (with seven freshmen and two eighth graders on the roster), it was the pair of seniors the Lady Eagles leaned on to keep their season alive.
Eastside was down 52-44 with under four minutes to play. Led by clutch defense from McBride and big buckets from Harvey, it closed the game on a 16-4 run to beat Fort Mill, 60-56.
“We didn’t want our senior years to end yet,” said Harvey. “Honestly, playing basketball before the year with Kristen and this whole season, it’s giving me love back for the sport again. And our motivation now is just to keep this going.”
“This is our last season,” said McBride. “We want to play with that intensity every game now, knowing this is it. Laila’s my sister. I’m not ready for this to end with her.”
Harvey finished with 21 points and seven rebounds in the win, while McBride poured in 13 points. For both, a large sum of those points came in crunch time, when the season looked to be on life support.
“You see how those two lead this team, and you aren’t surprised by things like this,” said Young. “Those girls have led this younger team all season long in academics, practice, all the little things.
“We’re going to miss them next year. But they’ve instilled something in these younger players for when it’s time for them to step up next.”
But that time hasn’t come quite yet. The Lady Eagles still have (at least) one game in front of them. That’s a trip to No. 1 seed Greenville on Tuesday night.
The winner goes to the 5-A Division II Upper State Championship.
“It’s a huge blessing to be in this position, especially with the young team that we have,” said Young. “But it just shows how hungry this team is to win. They compete with anything and everything that they do.”
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