Regional Tournament roundup
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Spring Garden 72, Ragland 42
The Spring Garden girls delivered a first-quarter knockout punch and blasted the Ragland Purple Devils 72-42, doing their part to make Friday's Class 1A Northeast Regional championship game an all-Area 13 affair. The Panthers will meet Gaston at 12:20 p.m. in Jacksonville State's Pete Mathews Coliseum. Spring Garden (33-0) has beaten the Bulldogs (20-8) three times this year. "That's the last thing I told them in the locker room, the first quarter is the most important," said Spring Garden coach Ricky Austin. The plan coming in was to score in transition, building a lead and wearing down the heavier Ragland players at the same time. Spring Garden led 33-11 after one quarter Tuesday. Not a part of the plan but welcome nonetheless was the Panthers' outstanding shooting from outside the arc. Andrea Bean, Ragland's 6-foot post player, scored the game's first basket. Spring Garden's Paige Anderson answered on the ensuing possession with a 3-pointer, and the Panthers never trailed again. By the end of the first quarter, Spring Garden had six treys. Anderson had three, freshman Tara Mullinax two and senior Olivia Mobley one. By halftime Spring Garden led 52-17, and Austin had used 10 players. The Panthers were 20 of 32 from the field, including 8 of 15 from long range, and won the first-half rebounding war 19-9. Ragland had no offensive rebounds in the first half as senior Bridget Parris and sophomore Shelby Malone combined to keep Bean off the offensive boards. Spring Garden ended the game with a 37-19 rebounding advantage. Parris led with eight boards in 22 minutes. Mullinax had six boards in 17 minutes. Anderson finished with 26 points in 18 minutes. She made 5 of 8 3-point attempts, 4 of 4 in the first half. Parris scored 17 points and Mullinax 12. In all, 13 Panthers played and nine scored. Freshman Paige Gann led Ragland with 17 points. Bean ended with 12 points and a team-high five rebounds. — Rip Donovan Holy Family 71, Spring Garden 58
Two days ago, Spring Garden boys coach Jason Howard said limiting turnovers would be key in the Panthers' Class 1A Northeast Regional semifinal game against Holy Family. Tuesday afternoon, the Tornadoes proved Howard's point. Leading only 8-7 early, Holy Family's 1-2-2 half-court trap suddenly produced a string of turnovers at midcourt. Spring Garden was scoreless for almost four minutes as Holy Family went on a 10-0 run; eight of the points were a direct result of turnovers by the Panthers. "We didn't handle pressure well in the first half. We did a better job in the second half," Howard said. "Unforced errors is the best way I know to describe it. Those were mistakes that down here you can't make." Holy Family extended its lead to 38-26 at halftime. Only 3-point basket by junior Andrew Allen with 22 seconds left in the half kept it from being worse. The Panthers got another 3-pointer just before the third-quarter buzzer from senior Andrew Morris, and trailed 53-43 entering the final quarter. Down 58-45 with 5:33 left, Spring Garden outscored Holy Family 9-1 over the next two minutes. Holy Family scored the next eight points as Spring Garden endured a two-minute scoring drought. Morris ended with 23 points and six rebounds. Cliff Highfield had 12 points and nine boards. Allen scored nine points and Trey Littlefield eight points. — Rip Donovan Class 6A BoysGadsden City allowed a 19-point, third-quarter lead to be chiseled down to four less than two minutes into the fourth quarter before pulling away in the game's final stages. Minor guard Chris Young scored two of his game-high 27 points on a layup with 6:41 to play in the fourth quarter to make the score 66-62 in favor of the Titans (21-8). But it was as close as the Tigers would get as Gadsden City closed the out game on a 13-4 run to secure the victory and advance to Friday's regional final, where they'll face Homewood at 10:40 a.m. The Patriots defeated Huffman 53-37 earlier in the day. Titans' senior guard Franklin Howze gave Minor (17-12) all it could handle in the first half, scoring 14 of his 19 in the first half, including 3-for-7 shooting from downtown. Senior forward Jerrell Harris also scored 19 for Gadsden City to go along with eight rebounds and four assists. |
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