DULUTH — Their careers covered two generations of basketball at Northwest Whitfield and had almost parallel outcomes. A mother and daughter traveled the same paths, just 20 years apart. They were together Friday — one in the stands, the other on the court — to share an experience of a lifetime.
Baleigh Coley was almost always the smallest player on the court, but was also one who consistently came up with big performances in four years.
The 5-foot-4-inch point guard was instrumental in helping the Lady Bruins reach Friday’s Class 4A state tournament championship game, where they lost to Southwest DeKalb, 65-45, at the Arena at Gwinnett Center before thousands of boisterous fans from the two schools.
As the team’s floor general, Coley, who has signed a college scholarship with Columbus State, directed the Lady Bruins’ high-powered offense and was instrumental in defensive efforts night after night that left opposing teams ragged.
While at Northwest, Coley never finished a season without appearing in a state tournament.
In the past three, however, she experienced a string of losses to one team — Southwest DeKalb. Three years ago, the Lady Panthers beat Northwest in the second round. A year ago, Southwest notched a quarterfinal victory and on Friday the Lady Panthers took home another state title with a superlative effort that left the Lady Bruins wondering what had just happened.
“The past two years were huge for me,” Coley said. “I was the starting point guard that ran the team, and they’re years I’ll always remember. We went 28-3 and 29-4 and that’s something to be proud of.”
The team left Tunnel Hill on Friday morning confident of being able to handle the challenge that Southwest presented. It was a nice ride and the players were chatty, yet focused on what they were about to do.
Normally, the bus ride to a game is a quiet trip, Coley said. Maybe that was the confidence talking on the way to Duluth, but Coley and her teammates fully expected to play well and challenge the two-time defending champion Lady Panthers.
Coley knew it wouldn’t be an easy game, but she thought a victory was certainly possible.
Hopes of bringing home the school’s first state basketball championship were dashed in the first 2 minutes and 37 seconds when Southwest raced to a 14-0 lead.
Still, after a 22-minute postgame meeting with coach Margaret Stockburger in the locker room, Bailey’s pride of being a Lady Bruins player was evident when she came out of the door.
“I’m so proud to say I was a part of this team,” she said. “It’s been great. No team since my mom’s senior year got to the state finals. I won’t hang my head, even tough I’m disappointed we didn’t win.”
Coley’s mother, Tracie Ellis, played on two state tournament teams during her career at Northwest.
In the 1989 Class 3A state tournament, Northwest went in 26-0 and lost to Hart County in the first round. The very next season, Northwest reached the state title game and lost to the same Lady Bulldogs again.
“That year,” Ellis said, “we lost to LFO in the region and they then lost in the first round of state. We got to the championship game.”
Ellis still remembers the headlines in the local paper, she said.
“Hartbroke was the first one,” she said before Friday’s game. “The second one was Hartbroken Again.”
Interestingly, Coley and her mother don’t sit around talking about their basketball careers, not even on the night before Baleigh’s biggest game ever.
Ellis said Baleigh hung out with a friend on Thursday night and played basketball with her 3-year-old twin brothers, J.D. and Beau, both of whom were at Friday’s game, along with Baleigh’s stepfather, Tim Ellis.
At Friday morning’s pep rally at Northwest Whitfield High, Tracie Ellis read a poem that Stockburger — an assistant coach for many years before taking over the program — had written before the 1990 team’s state championship appearance.
It was about how important the game was, and it certainly applied to Friday’s showdown as well. It was, Ellis said, about joy and fame and making dreams come true. It exhorted players to play their best, make the game a tough fight and make the most of the moment.
But each of the two games ended in the same manner with disappointing losses.
Moms and daughters don’t talk about tough losses that much.
But moms do talk about their daughter’s basketball skills.
“I didn’t play that much,” Tracie Ellis said. “Baleigh has much more playing ability that I had. This is her moment.”
Coley has played basketball since she was 5 and gained valuable experience in AAU ball while being coached by her stepfather, Tim Ellis, who is also a high school coach. She used to practice with boys teams.
“All that work has shown up this year,” said Ellis, a proud mom.
Don’t be surprised if they sit down soon, drag out mom’s scrapbooks and talk about careers that took them both to the brink of a state championship.
Larry Fleming is sports editor of The Daily Citizen. You can write to him at larryfleming@daltoncitizen.com.
