From Staff Reports
Northwest Whitfield’s boys basketball team opened its season Wednesday night and rode the 18-point performance of Alex Thames to a 66-55 victory over Heritage-Catoosa at Ridgeland High’s Thanksgiving tournament in Rossville.
But Bruins coach Ryan Richards wasn’t completely pleased.
“We had a good first quarter and a bad second quarter,” he said. “Heritage was up 43-35 at halftime and there were a lot of times last year we didn’t give up 40 points in a game.”
So, Northwest made an adjustment defensively and turned the game around.
“We were in foul trouble in the second quarter and decided to get back into our press,” Richards said. “We were able to convert some points off that and did a better job of getting people on their shooters by stretching our defense. They were shooting some pretty deep 3s. Heritage has a good team and when they get hot they can run you out of the gym.”
Michael Kelly scored 11 points for the Bruins and Deon Washington added 10.
Northwest returns to action in the tournament’s round-robin format today when it plays host Ridgeland at 8:30 p.m. The Bruins will play Ringgold at 5:30 p.m. Saturday.
Other late prep results from Wednesday’s basketball tournament action:
• Ringgold boys 62, Murray County 56: Beau Booth had 12 points and 12 rebounds for the Indians, but that effort wasn’t enough to offset Murray’s sloppy ballhandling and another game of sub-par shooting, coach Greg Linder said.
The Indians (1-2) committed 30 turnovers, 19 in the second half, and made 21 of 35 free throws.
“The problem was in the fourth quarter we hit 6 of 14 free throws,” Linder said. “They were up 40-38 going into the fourth quarter, they went out on us a little bit and we couldn’t catch up because we weren’t hitting our free throws.”
For the game, the Indians were 13 of 32 from the floor for 41 percent and just 20 percent from 3-point distance.
“That tells the tale,” Linder said. “I felt a majority of our turnovers were unforced. We got sloppy with the ball, lost our focus and that cost us the game. We just can’t win doing that.”
Blake Hammontree led the Indians with 13 points, giving the 6-foot-4-inch Booth, a post player, nice support.
Nick Scott had 15 points for the Tigers. Barrett Johnson added 14 and Trey Holt finished with 12.
The Indians are back in action at 8:30 p.m. Saturday when they play host Ridgeland.
• Model boys 77, Southeast 64: Model sophomore Shaquille Calhoun scored 25 points to spoil Josh Carter’s first game as Raiders coach in the Southeast Thanksgiving tournament.
All of Calhoun’s points came in the second half, when the 6-foot-3-inch guard worked extensively inside, posting up the Raiders’ smaller guards, Carter said.
“He scored in every possible way,” Carter said of Calhoun. “He’s one of the top players out there. He’s good with both hands and shoots as good as anybody.”
Trey Parris scored 18 points to lead the Raiders (0-1), while Zach Harper had 13 points and Bradley Grant 11.
At 5:30 p.m. today, the Raiders play Polk County in their round-robin portion of the tournament.
• Ringgold girls 56, Murray County 50: Tember Marchant poured in a game-high 24 points, but no other Lady Indians player was within 16 points of her as Murray County dropped another game in the Ridgeland Thanksgiving tourney.
Lindsay Watts and Jenna Rogers each finished with eight points for Murray County (0-3), while Danielle Sisk paced the Lady Tigers with 20 points and Allie Fairchild had 15.
“We actually played better, more together,” Lady Indians interim coach Carl Koneman said. “But their post players (Sisk and Fairchild) just beat us up inside with a lot of second-chance baskets. I was glad to see Tember break out with some points. We need that type offense from her. She is our scorer.”
The Lady Indians play Ringgold again at 7 p.m. Saturday.
Varsity wrestling
Murray County went 4-1 at Harrison High’s Turkey Duals on Wednesday, overcoming a first-round loss to North Forsyth to place third.
After the Indians fell 42-34 to North Forsyth, they picked up wins against McEachern, 46-22, North Gwinnett, 37-33, Marietta, 48-30, and Harrison, 47-36.
Murray County was led by a 5-0 showing by Dalton Lane, who while wrestling in the 145- and 152-pound weight classes had four pins and a 21-7 major decision.
Joshua Webb (112), Jessie Peeples (125) and David Thornbury (189) each went 4-1, while D.J. Winters (285) was 3-1.
JV wrestling
Northwest Whitfield had three weight-class winners — Tucker Sheram (103), Brandon Davenport (140) and Grant Fuller (171) — in a tourney at Ringgold High on Tuesday.
The Bruins’ Shawn Estermyer (112), Isaac Coley (119) and Nick Mercer (135), Peyton Kell (112), Justin Hawkins (130), Hunter Horn, Andrew Pope and Jared Haws (152) and Sebastian Holmes (189) all earned third-place finishes, as did Jordan Jones and Chris Tinson (145), all of whom had matches called off because the tourney ran late and some competition was halted.
Dustin Porter (119), Brian Whitmire (171) and Francisco Ramirez (215) were fourth.
