East Ridge's Marquis Hinton takes the ball to the basket.
photo by Greg Davick
The situation was the same for both basketball teams from East Ridge Wednesday night at Howard High School’s Henry Bowles Gymnasium.
Both teams were seeded seventh in the District 6-AA tournament, so they had to travel to sixth-seeded Howard for the play-in game.
With nothing to lose and everything to gain on both counts, the teams in orange prevailed twice and lived to play at least one more game.
The Lady Pioneers, winning for only the fourth time in 25 games, claimed a 63-58 victory and will face third-seeded Central on the road Thursday night at 6.
The East Ridge boys, now 8-16 following Wednesday’s come-from-behind 59-52 victory, will travel to Tyner on Friday to face the third-seeded Rams. Game time is set for 7 p.m.
EAST RIDGE GIRLS 63, HOWARD 58: East Ridge coach Blaine Brewer said at halftime that his team had played well in the first half of earlier games, only to get beat in the second half.
The Lady Pioneers built a 28-19 lead at the half in this game and made it stand.
“We hung in there for the win and I’m so happy about that,” said Brewer shortly after the game ended.
“We’re 1-0 now. I thought we played pretty well for 28 minutes and that was good enough to win, but we were able to get out in transition in the first half and was a key for us. We aren’t very good in our half-court offense.
“And we have to stay out of foul trouble, but we had split with Howard. We won at our place and they whipped us good here, so I’m glad that we could win here tonight,” he added.
Junior Jayla Stone was the spark plug for East Ridge as she scored 31 points to lead the winning effort, including 18 in the second half. Rabbit Lawrence was next with 18.
Twanasia Fitch scored 15 points for Howard as the Lady Hustlin’ Tigers had four players in double figures.
Deonna Powell, DeShayla Rice and Adriana Hall all followed with 14, 13 and 12 points, respectively.
The Lady Pioneers never gave up that halftime lead although six straight points from Howard closed the gap to 36-34 following a 3 from the wing by Hall with 2:27 left in the third quarter.
Another long one from Rice early in the fourth trimmed the difference to 46-42, but Lawrence and Stone scored back-to-back buckets and the Howard girls never got any closer.
EAST RIDGE BOYS 59, HOWARD 52: This was the tale of two halves.
Howard won the first half by a 31-22 margin while East Ridge prevailed in the final two quarters by 37-21 to claim the overall victory.
Howard coach Walter “Moose” McGary had a worried look on his face as his team came back on the floor following the halftime break.
“That first half wasn’t bad, but this is the one I’m worried about,” the veteran coach suggested in passing.
Oh, how true his words turned out to be.
The Hustlin’ Tigers had been effective working the ball inside during the first half, but they took a different approach in the second and it didn’t work nearly as well.
“It’s been the same thing all year long as they just don’t want to play team ball,” McGary said before going to the Howard dressing room at the end.
“I have a few hot heads who just won’t listen to me and they are not team oriented. All of that undisciplined stuff cost us another game,” he said, obviously not happy with the way things turned out.
A short jumper in the lane by Rico Weaver allowed Howard to build the lead to 35-27 with six minutes to play in the third quarter, but a 14-0 run in the next five minutes totally turned things around for the Pioneers.
Marquis Hinton had one 3 and Elijah Garmany a pair in the run for the Pioneers before Howard scored the final three points to trail by 41-38 with eight minutes remaining.
The Hustlin’ Tigers got to within one point three times in the final minutes – the last time at 50-49 following a bucket by Sayyid Muhammed with 2:15 to play, -- but Garmany made another 3 and his teammates were able to sink six of nine free throws in the final minute to preserve the victory.
While Howard’s McGary was dejected over the way his team played in the second half, East Ridge’s Jon Goddard had similar feelings about the first half.
“We did a horrible job of keeping them out of the lane in the first half, but I told them that we had prepared them for every situation and it was up to them if our season was going to continue,” he said a few minutes after the final horn had sounded.
“We started playing better defense and we were able to make a few shots to fight back in it. Like a case of Dr.
Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, it was a tale of two halves and we were fortunate enough to come out on top,” he concluded with a smile.
Hinton scored 24 points to lead the East Ridge attack while Garmany was next with 18. Jeff Thomas was also in double digits for the Pioneers with 13.
Weaver was tops for Howard with a dozen points. Courtney Hyter was next with seven while Marques Williams finished with seven and Juwan Hill six.
GIRLS SUMMARY
EAST RIDGE 10 18 14 21 -- 63
HOWARD 9 10 17 22 -- 58
EAST RIDGE (63) – Stone 31, Jordan 2, Kendrick 3, Murphy 5, Lawrence 18, Hill, Johnson 2, Hubbard 2.
HOWARD (58) – Hall 12, Powell 14, Rice 13, Merritt 3, Fitch 15, Williams, Neal.
3-POINT GOALS: East Ridge 3 (Stone 2, Kendrick); Howard 6 (Hall 2, Powell, Rice 3).
BOYS SUMMARY
EAST RIDGE 11 11 19 18 -- 59
HOWARD 18 13 7 14 -- 52
EAST RIDGE (59) – Johnson 4, Reiniche, Thomas 13, Simmons, Hinton 24, Garmany 18, Moffett, McKibben.
HOWARD (52) – Williams 7, Hill 6, Weaver 12, Smith 3, Muhammed 5, Fitch 5, Cal 5, Hyter 9.
3-POINT GOALS: East Ridge 11 (Thomas 3, Hinton 4, Garmany 4); Howard none.
(Email John Hunt at nomarathonmoose@gmail.com)