Brainerd Girls, Howard Boys Win 6-AA Consolations

East Ridge Loses By Four Points In Both Games At Hixson

  • Monday, February 20, 2017
  • John Hunt

It was consolation night at Hixson High School for the District 6-AA basketball tournament and East Ridge came out on the short end in both games.

Brainerd’s girls rallied for a 39-35 win in the first game while Howard’s Hustlin’ Tigers did enough at the end to hold off the East Ridge boys by a 61-57 final.

The tournament concludes on Tuesday with both championship games.

Red Bank will face Tyner in the girls game at 6 while Tyner and Brainerd will battle for tournament honors among the guys.

All four teams from Monday’s games will be on the road for first-round region games while all of Tuesday’s teams will be hosting later in the week.

BRAINERD GIRLS 39, EAST RIDGE 35: These two teams didn’t exactly set the woods on fire with outstanding play, but the Lady Panthers did just enough to prevail in a game that kept them from having to face ever-tough McMinn Central in the regional first round.

“We somehow found a way to pull it out,” said Brainerd coach Stanley Jackson after the hard-fought contest had ended.

“We fell behind in the first half more on what we weren’t doing than what they did.  Most of their points came from our turnovers as we were chasing and fouling, but Kia Render hit some big shots down the stretch and Kenisha Price played well and kept us in it.

“We may graduate players every year, but tradition doesn’t leave.  We’re just trying to learn how to win again,” Jackson said with a smile.

East Ridge coach Lebron Williams was brief and to the point as he was in a hurry to address his girls following the game.

“We have to score more points and learn how to keep them from scoring.  We also need to learn how to box out on defense, but at this point, I really don’t have an answer,” he said.

The Lady Pioneers jumped out to a 5-0 lead in the first half of the first quarter, but BriShonda Robinson hit two free throws with 1:14 showing to make it 9-7 before Price hit a long bank shot from key at the buzzer to give Brainerd a 10-9 lead when the first stanza ended.

The Lady Panthers only scored three points in the second quarter and trailed 18-13 at intermission.

Mya Adams scored the first three points of the second half to give the Lady Pioneers a 21-14 lead before Brainerd responded with eight straight points for a 22-21 lead with 2:22 left in the third stanza.

East Ridge got a short banker from Jayla Stone and a free throw from Kyanna Kendrick at the end for a 24-22 lead when the quarter ended.

Casia Jarrett had one bucket and Render two more as the Lady Panthers regained the lead at 28-24 with 6:02 to play before Stone scored five straight for a 29-28 East Ridge lead with 4:33 to play.

Brainerd then sank five of six from the charity stripe for a 33-29 lead with 3:15 left and could have put the game away at the line, but missed six straight in the next minute.

Amarah Robinson scored on a drive along the wing with 1:45 left to give Brainerd a 35-31 lead before Stone scored four straight to knot the score with 1:05 to play.

Render and Amarah Robinson hit a free throw each in the last minute for a two-point Brainerd lead while a putback from Jarrett at the end provided the final four-point margin of victory.

Render scored 11 points to lead Brainerd while Jarrett finished with nine and Price eight.

Stone was tops for the Lady Pioneers with 16 points while Adams was next with nine.

Brainerd also won the rebound battle by an unofficial 32-22 margin.  Amarah Robinson had nine and BriShonda Robinson seven for the Lady Panthers while Laneisha Toney, Stone and Adams all had five for the Lady Pioneers.

HOWARD BOYS 61, EAST RIDGE 57:  Coach Walter “Moose” McGary blamed poor free throw shooting as one reason his Howard Hustlin’ Tigers lost to Brainerd in the semifinals on Saturday.

More specifically, senior Anthony Cal missed six charity tosses in bonus situations.

Cal reversed those fortunes Monday night as he hit four straight in the final 1.8 seconds for the winning points in a 61-57 outcome.

“We needed that and those free throws by Anthony at the end were big as he’s been missing a lot lately,” McGary suggested after his team had improved to 16-10 overall.

“I thought we played pretty well in the first half, but there are times we just can’t handle prosperity.  We started playing individual ball and that’s been our bugaboo all year.  We have a chance to be pretty good when we don’t get selfish.

“I’ve always believed in my guys and they start listening to me when we’re behind.  If they would just start listening at the start of the game, we wouldn’t have been behind, but we had to keep our composure at the end and I felt like we did for the most part,” the veteran coach added.

The score was tied at 7-7 midway through the first quarter before Howard finished the period on a 12-2 run for a 19-9 lead at the first major break.

That lead stretched to its biggest margin of 17 points following a layup by Wardarius Ramsey with 4:59 left before halftime.

The Pioneers scored the last five points in the final minute to trail by 39-30 at intermission.

Howard’s lead was still 50-41 when the fourth quarter started and that’s when the Pioneers came to life.

Scoring 13 straight points to start the fourth, East Ridge had a lead at 53-30 after Deaunta Moton hit two free throws with 4:22 to play.

Telijah Snow then broke the drought with a bucket at the 3:22 mark before a 3 by Marquez Williams put Howard ahead 55-53 with 2:50 left.

Snow scored again with just over a minute left for a 57-53 lead before Tyrone Mathis cut it to one with a 3 with 51.5 seconds left.  Marquis Hinton hit the second of two free throws with 20.4 seconds left to tie the score, but Cal was fouled as the clock wound down and hit both ends of a one-and-one for a 59-57 lead with 1.8 seconds left.

An inbounds violation by the Pioneers gave the ball back to Howard and Cal was fouled again with 0.9 left.  Again, he swished both tosses for the final four-point margin.

East Ridge coach Jon Goddard liked the way his kids responded in the second half, but felt like it may have been a different outcome had they played that way for four quarters.

“We should have played like that the whole game, but we really challenged them at the half and they played well in the final two quarters as a result.  I had the wrong people in the game at the end and that’s my fault, but we just missed too many shots there at the end with the game on the line,” he added.

Williams had 15 points to lead Howard while Snow and Cal both had double-doubles.  Snow had a dozen points and 14 rebounds whihle Cal had 11 points and 10 rebounds as the Hustlin’ Tigers had an unofficial 30-20 edge on the glass.

Elijah Garmany had 17 points to lead East Ridge while Hinton finished with 11 and Mathis 10.

Garmany also grabbed five rebounds while Lorenzo Stewart claimed four.

GIRLS SUMMARY

EAST RIDGE  9  9  6  11  --  35

BRAINERD  10  3  9  17  --  39

EAST RIDGE (35) – Stone 16, Hill 5, Kendrick 1, Murphy, Jordan 4, Toney, Adams 9, Hubbard.

BRAINERD (39) – A. Robinson 5, B. Robinson 6, Price 8, Jarrett 9, Coates, Render 11, Smith.

3-POINT GOALS: East Ridge 2 (Stone 2); Brainerd 1 (Price).

BOYS SUMMARY

EAST RIDGE  9  21  11  16  --  57

HOWARD  19  20  11  11  --  61

EAST RIDGE (57) – Moton 8, Hinton 11, S. Garmany 5, N. Mathis, Stewart, Simmons 4, T. Mathis 10, Taylor, E. Garmany 17, Eberhardt 2.

HOWARD (61) – Williams 15, Lowery 5, Hill 2, Johnson 5, Weaver 1, Haney, Smith 3, Fitch 1, Ramsey 6, Cal 11, Snow 12.

3-POINT GOALS: East Ridge 4 (Hinton, S. Garmany, E. Garmany 2); Howard 6 (Williams 4, Lowery, Smith).

(email John Hunt at nomarathonmoose@gmail.com) 

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