Shulman Leads McCallie Past Calhoun In MLK Hoops

Blue Tornado Win By 25; East Hamilton, GPS, CCS Also Victorious

  • Monday, January 16, 2017
  • John Hunt
McCallie's Max Shulman (13) flies to the rim with a lay-up against Calhoun (GA) Monday evening at UTC's Maclellan Gym. Shulman led the Blue Tornado with 20 points as they handily dispatched the Yellow Jackets as part of the MLK King of the Court action.
McCallie's Max Shulman (13) flies to the rim with a lay-up against Calhoun (GA) Monday evening at UTC's Maclellan Gym. Shulman led the Blue Tornado with 20 points as they handily dispatched the Yellow Jackets as part of the MLK King of the Court action.
photo by Dennis Norwood

The inaugural MLK King of the Court day of basketball action at UTC’s Maclellan Gym is now in the books and there were some pretty good games despite only one of the five games being relatively close.

The GPS Bruisers came from behind to beat Van Buren County by a 51-45 final, but the average margin of victory for the other four games was a whopping 26.25 points.

Those other games had East Hamilton girls beating Chattanooga Christian by 53-20 in the opener while the CCS  boys pinned a 59-25 defeat on Boyd-Buchanan the day’s second game.

GPS won the third game while the East Hamilton boys rolled past Van Buren by a 75-52 final and McCallie beat a very good Calhoun team by 80-55 in the last game of the day.

EAST HAMILTON GIRLS 53, CCS 20: This game was never close as the Lady Hurricanes raced to a 20-6 lead after one quarter and never looked back.

East Hamilton coach Hunter Gremore felt like his girls played better as the game progressed and they got more used to the wide-open feel of Maclellan Gym.

“We played some really tough teams at the start of the season and I knew we’d take our lumps, but we’ve played at a different level since Christmas,” he said after his team had improved to 8-9 overall with its fourth straight win.

“I’m pleased with how we’ve progressed as we’re playing with a lot of confidence right now.  We didn’t shoot the ball very well at the beginning today, but we got better as the game went along,” he added.

Madison Hayes scored 14 points to lead the Lady Hurricanes while Hailey Abernathy was next with a dozen.  Maleiah Moore canned three 3s and finished with nine points while Kaiyanna Suttles added eight for the winners.

Addie Henry and Lucy Sandhoff both scored six points for the Lady Chargers, who are now 7-10 for the season.

CHATTANOOGA CHRISTIAN BOYS 59, BOYD-BUCHANAN 25: The Buccaneers were still within striking distance at 23-13 when the first quarter ended, but the outcome had long been determined by the half as CCS used a 17-4 advantage to build a 40-17 lead at the break.

Ben Moore scored all 20 of his points in the first half while Ryan Rhodes was also in double figures with a dozen.

The Bucs didn’t have any players in double figures, but Max Walker had eight points to lead his team.  Matt Serven and Riley Covington were next with seven and six points, respectively.

GPS GIRLS 51, VAN BUREN CO. 45: The winning Bruisers didn’t shoot the ball very well in the first half and were on the short end of a 23-20 score at the break, but they turned things around in a big way during the final two stanzas to win by six.

“We played our hearts out for the entire 32 minutes and that’s what I liked,” said GPS coach Wes Moore after his team had improved to 12-6.

“We never took a possession off and we were able to make some big shots in the second half.  As a result, we were able to beat a pretty good team today,” Moore added.

Brooke McCurdy’s 3 in the final minute of the third quarter allowed GPS to take a 35-33 lead with one stanza remaining and the Eaglettes never regained the advantage. 

Mallory Christian had back-to-back layups in the fourth quarter, the last one with 1:06 to play as Van Buren got within 44-42, but the Bruisers hit six straight free throws and seven of their last eight to secure the win.

Mackenzie Jennings had 15 points to lead the GPS attack while McCurdy followed with 13.  Lindsey Wyatt and J.J. Dunigan were next with nine and eight points, respectively.

Christian had 15 points to lead Van  Buren while Hannah Sullivan sank four 3s to finish with 14.  Tilly Dodson was also in double figures with 10 points.

EAST HAMILTON BOYS 75, VAN BUREN CO. 52: East Hamilton coach Rodney English was hoping that his team could get out to a quick start and with nice lead and force the Eagles to play catch up.

That’s exactly what happened as the Hurricanes scored the first nine points in the opening three minutes and never looked back as they improved to 14-5 with the 23-point win.

“We felt like we were more athletic than they were and we had a few more players, so we wanted to push the pace from the start,” English explained later.

“They got a little close in the third as we started fouling, so I called a timeout so we could quit focusing on the officials.  We were feeling sorry for ourselves at that point and had to regroup, but I’m really happy with the way we played without our leader Vandrele Wilson, who hurt his wrist and will be out for another game.

“Caden Mills is a really good player, so I knew we had to do a good job of containing everyone else and that’s basically what we did,” the coach added.

Noah Fager scored 18 points and was one of three East Hamilton players in double figures.

DaVae Hughley followed with 14 and Justin Dozier with 11 while Drew Williams added nine.

Mills had a dozen points in the first half, but really came on strong in the final two quarters to finish with 31.  Jared Binkley was next with seven for the Eagles.

McCALLIE BOYS 80, CALHOUN 55: Blue Tornado coach John Shulman had been looking forward to this game as he knew the Yellow Jackets were a quality opponent after losing in the state quarterfinals a year ago and finishing with a 27-1 record.

You might look at the 25-point final margin of victory and think this wasn’t a very good game, but McCallie had to battle for the entire 32 minutes to get its 19th win against just two losses.

Any other team would have been beaten by twice that amount.

McCallie is the top-ranked Division II team in the state for several reasons, including a very talented roster of players, guys who can shoot from outside extremely well and a team that normally just runs the other team in the ground physically.

The Blue Tornado took advantage of that outside shooting by canning three 3s in the opening two minutes – two from Henley Edge and another from Junior Clay -- and it was 11-0 before Calhoun got on the board with a free throw from Chapin Rierson at the 5:10 mark.

The difference was 18-1 following a short hook from Seth Clark midway through the first quarter, but the Yellow Jackets never backed down.

McCallie’s lead was 27-18 when the first stanza concluded.

Rierson scored again on a drive from the wing midway through the second quarter to get Calhoun within 37-30, but by the time Malik Lawrence canned a pair of free throws with 21 seconds remaining before intermission, the Blue Tornado had scored 13 more unanswered points and were well on their way to victory with an 18-point lead at the break.

Calhoun got to within 14 following a tip by Kaylan Aker with 6:34 remaining in the third, but McCallie scored 15 of the final 24 points in the quarter and were never threatened again.

“You can tell those guys are used to winning because we came out and threw a huge haymaker at them and they weren’t fazed one bit by it,” said Shulman shortly after the game ended.

“We did the little things we were supposed to do and that created some extra possessions, but we shot it well at the start and getting that nice lead early was a bonus for us,” he added.

Calhoun coach Vince Layson could only shake his head and smile when this one ended, his team losing for only the fourth time in 17 games.

“This is a good experience for us as it’s good for us to play great competition like this.  We have some big games coming up and this will only help us on down the road.  We could have easily laid down and quit, but we didn’t and I thought we showed a lot of poise,” he explained.

“You take a look at McCallie and they look like a bunch of average guys, but when they take the floor, they have a bunch of outstanding basketball players.  Hats off to them for playing really well tonight.

“We didn’t rebound the ball very well and it’s all about positioning, but they got a lot of offensive boards and that killed us.  We battled back and I’m proud of that, but we just couldn’t sustain it,” he added.

Max Shulman scored 10 points in each half and finished with 20 to lead the victorious McCallie team while Edge was next with 13.  Jay Gibson did a nice job off the bench and also tallied double figures with 11 points.

Lawrence was tops for Calhoun with 22, including six buckets from beyond the arc.  Rierson was next with 11.

McCallie won the battle of the boards by an unofficial 29-28 margin.  Shulman had nine and Gibson seven for the Blue Tornado while Porter Law and Davis Allen both claimed five for Calhoun.

GIRLS SUMMARIES

CHATTANOOGA CHRISTIAN  6  3  6  5  --  20

EAST HAMILTON  20  10  13  10  --  53

CCS (20) – Hughes, Pruitt 2, Blevins 2, Henry 6, Davick, Sandhoff 6, Fischer 1, Walker, Hendry, Dirkse 1, Fikkert, Jipping 2.

EAST HAMILTON (53) – Patton 1, Moore 9, Lacy 5, Wood, Scott, Hayes 14, Gray, Zeh, Johnson, Petitt, Abernathy 12, Laboo 2, Suttles 8.

3-POINT GOALS: CCS 1 (Henry); East Hamilton 7 (Moore 3, Abernathy 4).

GPS  10  10  15  16  --  51

VAN BUREN  13  10  10  12  --  45

GPS (51) – Wyatt 9, Dunigan 8, Jennings 15, Smith 6, McCurdy 13.

VAN BUREN CO. (45) – Dodson 10, Christian 15, Johnson 4, Fredricks 2, Sullivan 14, Boulden, Davis, Delon.

3-POINT GOALS; GPS 5 (Wyatt 2, McCurdy 3); Van Buren 8 (Dodson 2, Christian 2, Sullivan 4.)

BOYS SUMMARIES

BOYD-BUCHANAN  13  4  8  2  --  25

CHATTANOOGA CHRISTIAN  23  17  9  10  --  59

BOYD-BUCHANAN (25) – Edmonson, Walker 8, Gilliam, Evans, Covington 6, Baker 4, Serven 7, Oliver 2, Beavers, Baubach, Emrey.

CCS (59) – Moore 20, Davenport 3, Rowell, R. Rhodes 12, J. Rhodes 7, Loyal, Stimart 2, Ellison 6, Webb, Wharton, Spencer 6.

3-POINT GOALS: Boyd-Buchanan 3 (Covington 2, Serven); CCS 7 (Davenport, R. Rhodes 4, J. Rhodes, Loyal).

EAST HAMILTON  16  14  22  23  --  75

VAN BUREN CO.  8  11  16  17  --  52

EAST HAMILTON (75) – Williams 9, Montgomery 5, Pasley 5, Hughley 14, Randolph 4, Fager 18, Dozier 11, Hammett 3, Wingard 2, Schramm 4.

VAN BUREN CO. (52) – Mills 31, Crain 2, Binkley 7, Miller 4, Shockley 5, Simmons 1, Evans 2, McGuire 2.

3-POINT GOALS: East Hamilton 4 (Fager 2, Dozier, Hammett); Van Buren Co. 2 (Mills, Shockley).

CALHOUN   18  14  12  11  --  55

McCALLIE  27  23  15  15  --  80

CALHOUN (55) – Abernathy 3, Law 2, Studyvent, Barton, Aker 6, Goble 3, Baldridge 2, Goodson, Lawrence 22, McDonald, Rierson 11, Washington, Allen 4, Randall 2.

McCALLIE (80) – Starling 4, Watson 2, Walker 2, Clay 5, Gibson 11, Hewitt, Edge 13, M. Shulman 20, Clark 7, Hunt 3, Lewis 2, Butler 7, Riddle 2, T. Shulman 2, Watkins.

3-POINT GOALS: Calhoun 9 (Abernathy, Goble, Lawrence 6, Rierson); McCallie 9 (Clay, Edge 3, M. Shulman 2, Hunt, Butler 2).

(Email John Hunt at nomarathonmoose@gmail.com)

East Hamilton's Justin Dozier (11) heads for the hoop as Van Buren County's Jacob Crain defends. The 'Canes blistered the Eagles, 75-52 as Dozier scored 11 points in the win.
East Hamilton's Justin Dozier (11) heads for the hoop as Van Buren County's Jacob Crain defends. The 'Canes blistered the Eagles, 75-52 as Dozier scored 11 points in the win.
photo by Dennis Norwood
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