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North Murray High School Mountaineers

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  • Matt Hamilton/The Daily Citizen North Murray forward Zach Vess goes to the basket despite the defense of Coosa’s Tyler Bradley (23). Coosa beat North Murray in the Region 7-2A semifinals and will face Dade County for the title tonight at the Northwest Georgia Convention and Trade Center.

    NM:Coosa 4 mlh.jpg

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February 18, 2012

North Murray basketball doomed by crucial mistakes

By Devin Golden devingolden@daltoncitizen.com

Everything came unglued at the end Friday for North Murray’s boys basketball team.

The Mountaineers had a chance to reach the Region 7-2A tournament championship and take on Sub-region 7B-2A rival Dade County, but they squandered that opportunity as Coosa pulled out a 59-53 win at the Northwest Georgia Trade and Convention Center.

North Murray will play Calhoun — the 7B-2A No. 4 seed and a 70-58 loser to Dade County in Friday’s other boys semifinal — in today’s 4 p.m. consolation game at the trade center. Coosa and Dade County, who earlier this week won the sub-region tournament titles, will face off at 7 p.m. for the boys region championship.

On the girls side, Calhoun won 47-29 against River Ridge and Model beat Dade County 48-37 in Friday’s semifinals.

Model and Calhoun, also the two sub-region champs, will play for the girls region championship at 8:30. River Ridge, the No. 3 seed from 7A-2A, and Dade County, the No. 3 seed from 7B, will play for third place at 5:30 p.m.

The Mountaineers (20-9), Sub-region 7B-2A’s No. 2 seed, were in a battle with Coosa (23-4), the 7A-2A champions, for three quarters.

When one side seemed to get the upper hand, the other team countered with a quick run to shift the momentum. North Murray led 39-38 entering the fourth quarter, but from there, it was a slippery slope.

Coosa went on a 14-3 run over the next five minutes to build its biggest lead of the game at 51-42.

“That spurt in the fourth, I think that was the difference,” Coosa coach John McFather said. “It kept going back and forth, and we were sluggish to open the game ...”

North Murray coach Eric Bishop said the Mountaineers did not play up to their potential and allowed Coosa to stick around.

“Not taking anything away from (Coosa), but we are capable of more than we were actually producing,” he said. “It was back and forth and back and forth, and it was usually a situation where we made a goofy mistake or turned the ball over.

“... We made a ton of turnovers, had a ton of missed layups, and any time you do those things, the score will reflect it. And I think that’s what allowed (the game) to stay so tight.

“If we had done the things early on that we needed to do, it wouldn’t have been that way.”

North Murray defeated Armuchee 59-44 on Thursday to advance to the semifinals and secure the school’s first-ever berth to the Georgia High School Association Class 2A state tournament. Getting that historic win for a program only in its second year in varsity athletics might have set the Mountaineers up for a letdown against Coosa.

“The win (Thursday) got them excited and focusing on that,” Bishop said, “and not necessarily focusing on the next game.”

Zach Vess led North Murray’s effort with a double-double performance — a team-high 16 points to go with 11 rebounds. Brady Swilling had 14 points and nine rebounds, Austen Horn added 12 points and Tyler Duckett contributed eight points. Mountaineers point guard Gavin Ledford recorded eight rebounds, four assists and four steals.

“He played great tonight,” Bishop said.

While North Murray used its post game as the primary source of offense, Coosa countered it with its guard-post combination of Tyler Bradley and Slade Shumate. Shumate scored 18 points, six coming from two 3-point shots, and Bradley added 17 points and seven rebounds.

The Mountaineers finished 8-for-18 from the free-throw line, while Coosa was 9-for-12.

In a telling tale of how the first three quarters went, Christian McFather hit one of his three 3-pointers to give Coosa a 32-29 lead in the third quarter and Horn responded on the following possession with a trey of his own.

“It was a war,” coach McFather said. “North Murray has a good team. Their strength is obviously rebounding and throwing (the ball) inside. ... They’re a hard, blue-collar type team. My hat’s off to them. We were excited to win, but they made us fight.”

• Dade County boys 70, Calhoun 58: The Wolverines used a big second quarter to break away and advance to the title game.

Dade County (22-5), which trailed 17-13 after the first quarter, went on a 20-9 second-quarter run to take a halftime lead. Cole Birchfield scored 14 of his 24 points in the period.

Clay Johnson had 14 points for Calhoun (11-6).

• Calhoun girls 47, River Ridge 29: Jordan Livesay and Parker Nayman each scored 10 points for River Ridge (20-9), but were outdone by Taylor Palmer’s game-high 18 points for Calhoun.

• Model girls 48, Dade County 37: Carla Clemmons had 15 points to lead Model, which led for most of the game.

Ansley Chilton scored 13 points for Dade County (23-4).

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North Murray High School Mountaineers
  • CHS football spring 'game' 6 mlh.jpg

    Matt Hamilton/The Daily Citizen He’s also pleased with the gains his team has made in the weight room since January, which he believes translated to the field Friday. “Their stamina tonight was great,” Hamlin said. “They fought and competed with each other until the end.” The players were drafted into two teams for the game, which had no live kicking. Williams passed for two touchdowns and ran for another as he led the Navy. He’ll be back for his junior year after missing four weeks of last season with a collarbone injury, and he said he felt no pain at all after the scrimmage. Fullback Cordarius Tarver — who plowed over several defenders with his 6-foot-2-inch, 260-pound frame — stood out for the Silver, including on a run of more than 70 yards. “All the football starts now,” Hamlin said. “We need to work on our timing and alignment issues before fall. There’s always room for improvement everywhere.” But the Colts know each other much better going into this summer than last. “Last year we had people coming in from different schools,” Williams said, “and we didn’t know what to expect. Now we know and we trust that guy next to us.” The Colts open their season Aug. 31 at Murray County, and Hamlin hopes to continue seeing the fire and intensity he saw from his players this spring. “I want them to compete to the best of their ability,” Hamlin said. “When they give it all they have with character, that’s success.” n Christian Heritage: With limited numbers for most of the spring drills due to the school’s baseball team’s run in the state playoffs, Lions coach Preston Poag said he had limited contact for much of the two weeks. Friday night, the gloves were off. “I thought we looked pretty good,” Poag said. “There was some serious hitting going on, and I was pleased with where we are right now. The first-team offense looked really good out there, and we haven’t really been hitting a whole lot, but I was pleased with some of the intensity and some of the shots that were delivered out there.” Starting their second season under Poag, the Lions are much further along in their development this spring than they were a year ago. “I was just sitting there all night thinking how we looked last year,” Poag said. “It is just night and day from where we were to where we are now.” The Lions will play in its inaugural season in the Georgia High School Association in the fall, and Poag said one of the keys to making that transition is building depth on the team. Last year in the spring, Christian Heritage had 24 players. After graduating a senior class and losing six home-schoolers, this spring the Lions dressed 33. “The biggest thing compared to last year is that we have a little more depth on the team to give some of these guys a break when they need one,” Poag said. “Last year, the fourth quarter was tough becuase there wasn’t a whole lot to go to on the bench. Now, we have guys that we can put in there and you won’t miss much of a beat. We need that.” The culmination of spring practice was more play running than an actually scrimmage with the first-team offense running plays against the second-team defense for a set number of plays, and then vice-versa. Score wasn’t kept, but Poag heaped praise on several players. “Quarterback Trevor Brown threw the ball as good as I have seen him throw all year,” he said. “A.J. Hooper played really well in the secondary and isn’t afraid of sticking his head in there and hitting people. Two younger kids — freshman Tyson Cooper and Baylor-transfer Kyle Stanley — will really help us out.” Hooper is one of two rising seniors on the roster, and this is his first year playing football for the school. Fellow senior Michael McKinney was out for only half of the spring, but Poag said he assumed his leadership role with his return. “This time last year, I didn’t know about him, but he just got better and better,” Poag said. “He is just a hard-nosed player, and he never came off of the field. I know that I can count on him.” n North Murray: The Mountaineers’ new coach wanted to see if anyone would step up and claim one of the open positions on the line of scrimmage. Almost all of them made a jump up, making any depth chart decisions just as tough as before. North Murray’s annual intrasquad scrimmage ended in a 21-21 tie Friday night at the Chatsworth school, and first-year coach David Gann said the game was highlighted by strong showings from a couple skill players and a big leap from a handful of linemen. Running back Jacob Mays scored two touchdowns while running back Christian Buckle scored one. Brady Swilling, however, was the leading rusher with more than 100 yards while going 4 for 6 passing and throwing for around 60 yards. “(Swilling) ran the ball well on the option,” Gann said. “He was probably our overall leading rusher because he had a lot of 8-, 12- and 14-yard gainers. Jacob and Christian had big runs.” Chris Hayes has taken over as the Mountaineers’ defensive coordinator, and Gann spoke highly of him but also admitted he has some experience in the secondary and at linebacker. Jared Campbell and John Chastain had big days at middle linebacker, but the real story was in the trenches. “I feel pretty confident in our skill kids, but one question mark that I had coming in that I feel really good about is our line of scrimmage,” Gann said, noting Wesley Ross, Jacob Ledford and Jacob Bryson all played well. “They’re all starting to get it figured out. They were a little rusty at first.” Coming into Friday there were four open spots on the line of scrimmage and “around 10 guys battling” for them. “We’re going to watch film and review it as a staff,” Gann said. “They all stepped up and played great. No one separated himself from the rest because they all made a jump up.” One area he wants to focus on heading into the summer is strength. “We’ve got to get stronger as a football team,” he said. “One of our strengths is we’ve got four or five kids who can lift with anyone. But as a team we’ve got to get a lot stronger.” The two teams were divided Monday between white and black jerseys and practiced against one another all week.

    Spring football: Colts, Mountaineers, Lions finish up, too

    Coahulla Creek’s Navy and Silver Game ended one phase and started another for the young football program.
    The Colts’ intrasquad scrimmage Friday night at the school was a celebration of the end of spring practice, but also the start of the countdown to the program’s first varsity game. Coahulla Creek went 8-2 last year in its inaugural season while playing a junior varsity schedule, and the Colts will return every player from that team.

    Continued ...
    May 19, 2012 8:04 am 2 Photos
  • Clock is running May 18, 2012 8:10 am 2 Photos
  • Devin Golden: Soccer successes are something to build on May 13, 2012 7:00 am
  • GHSA state playoffs: Mountaineers fall to champs May 12, 2012 6:45 pm 2 Photos
  • Prep roundup: Pacheco takes fourth at state meet May 12, 2012 8:03 am
  • May 11, 2012
  • Spring practice: Mountaineers will know what coach expects May 11, 2012 8:08 am 2 Photos
  • Four paths, one mission May 11, 2012 8:06 am
  • Prep track and field: Swilling leads area’s medal haul May 11, 2012 8:02 am
  • May 10, 2012
  • Boys state track and field: Northwest has five of area’s nine in Jefferson May 10, 2012 8:12 am 1 Photo
  • May 9, 2012
  • One goal enough for Mountaineers May 9, 2012 8:06 am 2 Photos
  • Wells’ grant breaks ground for North Murray athletics May 9, 2012 8:01 am
  • May 8, 2012
  • GHSA soccer playoffs: Rewards and challenges increase in each round May 8, 2012 8:05 am 1 Photo
  • May 7, 2012
  • What's Going On: Grid iron interrupts tranquility May 7, 2012 7:00 am
  • Prep golf: Dalton's Rockholt goes out a winner May 7, 2012 12:13 am
  • May 6, 2012
  • Putting it all together May 6, 2012 8:10 am 1 Photo