Rockwood’s Brett Sands shoots over Chris Drake and Troy Pride of CSAS.
photo by M.A. Locke
Mark Dragoo has been the boys basketball coach at CSAS for a long time and last year was the first time in 18 years that his Patriots did not advance to the region semifinals.
They started a new streak Sunday afternoon after CSAS eliminated the Rockwood Tigers by a 49-37 final in the first round of the Region 2-A tournament in the winner's gym.
With the win, the Patriots improve to 16-13 and will face the winner of Harriman and Copper Basin in the semis on Tuesday night at Roane State Community College.
“We normally play better in the second half than the first, but we got off to a good start today,” Dragoo said following the game.
“The goal at this point is simply to survive and advance. We were able to do that, but we have some stuff we’ll work on tomorrow as we missed way too many free throws and get got outrebounded by a bunch.
“I thought we played well for three and a half quarters, but we sort of lost our focus and let them cut into our lead. We’re not a very good free-throw shooting team, but we had our best guy at the line and he still missed, so I’m not sure what’s going on with that.
“We were able to rebuild our lead a little bit. I was anxious at times, but never nervous,” Dragoo added.
The Patriots have always prided themselves on being outstanding on the defensive end. That defensive prowess caused problems for the Tigers as their offense never got going.
“Our defense was fine as we did what we needed to do, but our offense was awful,” began Rockwood coach Paul Kamikawa after his team’s season ended at 14-16.
“You can give CSAS credit for that as they’re really good, but we missed too many free throws and had too many turnovers as their overall quickness bothered us. Our effort was there as we weren’t going to quit, but that early deficit was too much to overcome,” he added.
The Patriots began the game by scoring the first nine points. They scored five of the last six and had a 14-7 lead when the first quarter ended.
That lead stretched to 29-16 by intermission while the biggest advantage of 21 points came midway through the third stanza at 37-16 after the Patriots began the second half on an 8-0. The difference was 41-21 with one quarter remaining.
Rockwood scored 11 unanswered points to start the final period and got within seven at 44-37 following a 3 by Nathan Brackett with 1:27 to play.
CSAS scored all eight of their fourth-quarter points at the free throw line, but the final margin of victory could have been more had they been more successful as the Patriots sank only eight of 16 and missed six straight at one point.
Hollis Edwards and Jaylen Akins both his two freebies each in the final minute to extend the final margin to a dozen points.
Cahlib Edwards scored 17 points to lead CSAS while Troy Pride was also in double figures with 14.
Brackett topped Rockwood with 10 points while Brett Sands finished with nine.
The Tigers did win the rebounding battle by an unofficial 30-18 margin. Brackett snagged 10 for the Tigers while Hayden Lee and Tahj Bazel both had four each. Pride had six to lead the Patriots.
ROCKWOOD 7 9 5 16 -- 37
ARTS & SCIENCES 14 15 12 8 -- 49
ROCKWOOD (37) – Sands 9, Lee 2, Brackett 10, Bazel 4, Worthy 1, Thompson 4, Orr 5.
CSAS (49) – Pride 14, Anderson, C. Edwards 17, Drake 3, Morris 6, Neely, Orr, Akins 2, H. Edwards 7,
3-POINT GOALS: Rockwood 3 (Sands, Brackett, Orr); CSAS 3 (C. Edwards, Drake, H. Edwards).
(Email John Hunt at nomarathonmoose@gmail.com)
Hollis Edwards of CSAS puts up a 3-pointer.
photo by M.A. Locke