McCallie's Wilson Rankin under pressure by Boyd-Buchanan's Ace Bailey.
photo by Greg Davick
We all know that the current sports season for high school athletes has been more different than any before as lots of games and tournaments have either been cancelled or rescheduled.
As a result, a basketball season that is normally more than halfway complete is barely started.
Such is the case at McCallie where the Blue Tornado basketball team has been sent to the bench more than once as play has been interrupted in hopes of avoiding critical issues involved with Covid 19.
The Blue Tornado got to play a game at home Monday afternoon against Boyd Buchanan. It was only McCallie’s eighth game of the season, but things seemed to turn out well, despite all of the previously-mentioned delays.
McCallie enjoyed a scoring advantage in all four quarters as the Blue Tornado slowly pulled away for a 55-37 victory.
While McCallie is now 6-2 overall, Boyd-Buchanan falls to 9-4 overall with two of those losses to McCallie.
Third-year McCallie coach David Conrady was just happy to see his kids get a chance to play against someone other than themselves.
“We’ve had very little activitity since the middle of December and we’ve put a lot of pressure on these kids to do things on their own to maintain fitness and skill levels. I’m proud of how we’ve been able to hang in there,” Conrady said after the final point had been scored.
“We knew that Boyd Buchanan has some size, so we needed to keep them off the boards. I thought we did a better job in the second half, but you could see things changed when they missed two or three shots and their confidence level dropped. We were able to take advantage of that,” the veteran coach added.
Perhaps the highlight of the day went to senior guard Eric Rivers, who surpassed 1,000 points for his prep career with the first two points he scored in the opening quarter.
Rivers finished with a game-high 25 points and he was one player that Boyd-Buchanan simply couldn’t contain.
“Most people don’t realize just how good an athlete Eric really is, but he’s a dynamic individual who is highly skilled,” praised Conrady.
Boyd-Buchanan coach Josh Templeton was quick to praise Rivers, who was a driving force in McCallie’s march to their second-straight state football title.
“We had a hard time containing Eric Rivers as he was hard to stop. He’s an unbelievable athlete who can simply take over a game.
“I thought we grew up a lot in today’s game, but McCallie has an outstanding team. Our effort was good and I’m proud of that, but we just didn’t communicate on defense and that hurt at times. They whipped us, but we’ll just have to get back on that horse and keep working to get better,” Templeton nodded.
Jacob Shockley, Ace Bailey and Caden Johnson all scored in the first three minutes as the Buccaneers bolted to a 6-2 lead.
The Blue Tornado responded with 11 straight points and the difference was 11-8 when the first quarter when Johnson scored on a drive down the lane with a second remaining.
Back-to-back putbacks by Karson Gay allowed the Bucs to regain the lead at 18-17 with 3:10 left before halftime, but McCallie ended the quarter on a 10-0 run for a 27-18 lead at intermission and the Blue Tornado never trailed again.
The Bucs scored six straight points – including four by Bailey – at the start of the second half to trail by only 30-28 with 5:01 left in the third, but the Blue Tornado finished the quarter on a 12-2 run and it never got any closer.
With Rivers scoring 11 of his 25 points in the final stanza, McCallie enjoyed its biggest lead at 55-35 following a 3 by the McCallie superstar.
Rivers was the only McCallie player in double figures, although Spencer Turner was close with nine and Kollin Claridy with eight.
Bailey scored 11 points to lead Boyd Buchanan while Shockley added 10.
Boyd Buchanan ended the game with an unofficial 26-25 rebounding edge as Bailey grabbed eight and Shockley five. David Craig, a developing 7-1 junior, grabbed eight boards for the Blue Tornado while Rivers had five.
BOYD BUCHANAN 8 10 12 7 -- 37
McCALLIE 11 16 15 13 -- 55
BOYD BUCHANAN (37) – Ca. Johnson 4, Co. Johnson, Calhoun, Wamack, Lopez 4, Bailey 11, Kolff, Gay 6, Craw, Miller, Shockley 10, Jones 2.
McCALLIE (55) – Turner 9, Rivers 25, Kwasigroch 2, Rankin 5, Claridy 8, Patel, Wiley, Hamilton, Jackson, Elliott 2, Sizemore, Craig 4.
3-POINT GOALS: Boyd Buchanan 1 (Bailey); McCallie 5 (Rivers 4, Rankin).
(Email John Hunt at nomarathonmoose@gmail.com)