South Side’s Lawson is Miss Basketball

A little more than 48 hours after the South Side Lady Hawks won the Class 3A basketball championship in Murfreesboro, senior Ti’Mia Lawson went back to Murfreesboro and came away with hardware of her own.

Lawson won the Miss Basketball award that was the latest in a series of “firsts” this season for the program and school.

“I was really nervous,” Lawson said about the moments before she was announced the winner. “I was confident that I might be named the winner, but I didn’t know because the other two finalists are good players too.”

Lawson was one of two Madison Countians who were named finalist for their respective Miss Basketball award.

Trinity Christian’s Olivia Lee was a finalist for the Division II-A Miss Basketball honor, which was won by Webb School’s Angelica Veliz. Lee won the award last year.

Lawson isn’t just South Side’s first Miss Basketball, but the school had never had anyone win Mr. Basketball or Mr. Football either.

“We’ve had a few finalists for Mr. Basketball, but Ti’Mia is the first winner from South Side,” said Brent McNeal, the head girls’ basketball coach at South Side. “To know the work she has put in makes this even more special because she’s worked for everything she’s achieved, and it’s so great to see her and this team achieve everything they have this week. It’s been a blur.”

The Mr. and Miss Basketball awards are based on a statewide nomination process by coaches and sports writers across the state in which finalists and winners are selected by a committee at the end of the regular season, so postseason performances don’t factor into the awards.

“I know last week didn’t factor into the process, but a lot of people got a chance last week to see how good a player T’Mia really is,” McNeal said about Lawson, who averaged 22.3 points per game in the Class 3A state tournament last week.

With her high school career complete at South Side, Lawson said she’s still weighing her options when it comes to her future of possibly playing college basketball.

“This week is Spring Break, and I’m taking this week to relax and just enjoy the break,” Lawson said. “Then I’ll start to look at that next week.”

Brandon Shields, brandon@jacksonpost.news