BIRMINGHAM, Alabama -- Jeremy Johnson, Carver's 6-foot-6 star, the state's Mr. Football, couldn't move without an elbow in his side, a hip behind his knee. Twenty seconds into the game, Sparkman's 5-foot-9 Jason Russell was on him like a barnacle on a old ship.

"Psychology can be a part of sports," Sparkman coach Jamie Coggins would explain later.

Russell looked like a Chihuahua nagging a Great Dane, a description that Russell agreed was "very accurate. He looked like he was a foot taller than me."

Harass the big kid with a little pest, who knows what that does to a psyche?

All part of the Sparkman philosophy which can be summed up in three words:

"Play very aggressively," Coggins said.

That might be nipping at the knees of a Goliath. Or it might be casually flinging up some 3-pointers when palms should be most sweaty, nerve most jangled, some of those shots that'd have some coaches anguishing "no ... no ... no ... no ... yes!"

Not Coggins.

"That's who we are," he shrugged.

Who they are now is the Sparkman Senators, state Class 6A finalist, by virtue of a 79-68 overtime victory against defending state champ Carver of Montgomery. This is Sparkman's 11th trip to the state but Saturday brings its first finals since 1997, when it was still but a Class 5A school.

Next up: Mountain Brook, which eliminated Blount while wearing some sort of greenish neon uniforms of a color found previously only on fishing lures and paint-ball games.

Sparkman stumbled its way into overtime with three consecutive turnovers after going up by seven. The Senators went turnstile as Caleb Provitt drove to the hoop from the free throw line for an awkward layup. The shot missed, but disconnected from Russell -- and anyone else in Sparkman colors, Johnson went up for the tip-in from the right side of the backboard.

One ...

Two ...

Three times he patty-caked the ball, the last going in a blink before the horn sounded.

Overtime.

Then, Carver and everyone else was reminded about that whole "play very aggressively" business.

Russell canned a 3-pointer 14 seconds into OT. Then Lamonte Turner, who finished with 27, drained one 47 seconds later. Russell went acrobat on a layup for an and-one three-point play. Carver seemed to just stand there, slack-jawed as Forrest Gump.

When Russell followed with a 3-pointer at 1:27, it made it 73-61, a lead that Carver couldn't climb back over.

"Our mindset is to be aggressive on the offensive end," Coggins said. "When we get looks like that, we're going to shoot at 3."

But, with an asterisk.

Russell's last 3 was indeed of the "no ... no ... no ... no ... yes!" ilk.

"I'm not very happy about that," Coggins said. "But it did go in. So he's going to get a pass on it."

Just a little more psychology, Coach, just some psychology.

Contact Mark McCarter at mmccarter@al.com and Follow @markmccarter