ATHENS, GA — Sometimes you win pretty. Sometimes you win ugly. And sometimes you win it all. 

Pace did it pretty over the last two years. They played ugly in the first half against Morgan County. And on Thursday afternoon they won it all for a second year in a row with a 54-46 win at Stegeman Coliseum to win the Class AAA state championship. 

Wendell Carter closed out his stellar high school career with another state championship. He pumped in 20 points and 17 rebounds on the state's biggest stage. It was a battle to get that kind of production though. Morgan County always had someone shadowing the 5-star big man. When Carter touched the ball, there were two Bulldogs on him in a big hurry and played him as physical as they could. 

“I just leaned on my teammates. I can’t do everything on the court so I looked to my teammates to fill in the spots and tried to do the dirty work. You can’t take that away from me. You can’t take away my passion,” Carter said. “As long as I run the floor and get rebounds, we were going to be good.” 

And they were. Carter owned the glass and the rest of the Knights held the duo of Alec Woodard and Tyrin Lawrence to a combined 24 points in the game. They average a combined 38 a game on the season. 

Neither team shot above 38 percent and the two teams combined for 39 turnovers. Pace fought through the tough times and pulled off the victory. 

Pace Academy played an aggressive schedule all season long, going all over the country to play some of the best teams in the nation. Pace Academy head coach Demetrius Smith said the lessons learned along the way helped prepare them for the road ahead and the stage that Athens is this time of year. 

“We’ve seen so many great teams. We’ve played the number two team in the country, the number seven team in the country, and No. 14 team in the country on ESPN,” Smith said. “Those kinds of battles can help you win games like this on this kind of stage. Our kids don’t get rattled. They stay in it and keep fighting. That’s what a schedule like that does for you.”