Tyliah Burns finished her prep career with a bang.
The North Augusta senior scored 33 points in a 70-57 win over South Pointe in the South Carolina High School League Class AAAA state title game in Columbia, securing her fourth straight championship. The win further solidified North Augusta’s spot on the map for South Carolina hoops.
“It’s great to be a part of it,” she said. “We want people to know about North Augusta and we feel like since we’ve done what we’ve done, people will think about North Augusta when they think about girls’ basketball, or sports period. We’re glad that we were able to make North Augusta noticeable to more people.”
Burns averaged 15.8 points and five rebounds per game during the season en route to an All-State selection. For her performance, she has been named The Augusta Chronicle’s South Carolina girls’ basketball player of the year.
Even with her spectacular performance in Colonial Life Arena, she made a point to give much of the credit to her head coach. Al Young orchestrated North Augusta’s four-peat and Burns said that while he demands greatness on the court, he does so with the best interest of his players in mind.
“Out of all the people, I would never think that would be me. I just know I worked real, real hard for this and coach Young pushed me real hard to get to this point,” she said. “It’s very intense, but it’s all love. You can tell that he actually loves you and cares about you. That makes us want to go harder, because we know what he wants and we just push ourselves to get it for him, honestly.”
Burns, along with fellow All-State selection J’Mani Ingram, was one of just two seniors on this year’s team. Nine of the 13 players on the roster were either freshmen or sophomores. In a leadership role, she said the most important thing was to lead by example.
“We had to lead by example, because the younger girls, when you’re playing and you yell at them, it lowers their confidence. Not really vocal, but just lead by example,” she said.
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