Wilson Hall tops Manning 55-45 to win District 9 Officials Christmas Tournament boys championship
Barons' Humphries selected as tournament's Most Valuable Player
Sumter – To say the Wilson Hall boys basketball team made good use of the 26th edition of the District 9 Officials Christmas Basketball Tournament might be something of an understatement. The Barons won the boys championship game on Saturday, beating Manning High School 55-45 at Morris College’s Garrick-Boykin Human Development Center.
Although a close game throughout, it was still the fourth double-digit victory for WH in as many tournament games. Wilson Hall, a SCISA AAAA school, beat fourth SCHSL schools – AAA Lake City 69-47, AAAA Hartsville 66-47, Class A East Clarendon 75-47 and AAA Manning.
“To have opportunities like this, to come out and play teams that aren't SCISA, that aren’t region, is good for us,” said Barons head coach Rip Ripley, whose team improved to 13-2 on the season. “To be able to play with stuff, we’re able to try some different things, to see what works, see what doesn’t against really good competition is big for us.
“I’m happy with where we are right now. Now it’s time to buckle down and get ready for our SCISA slate that’s coming up quickly.”
WH won with another balanced scoring attack as four players scored in double figures. Hugh Humphries led the way with 13 points, leading Wilson Hall in scoring in each game on the way to being named the tournament’s Most Valuable Player. The 6-foot-7-inch Humphries e scored 74 points in the four games.
Daniel Burton, who is 6-8, finished with 11 points, while Sean Michael Matthews and Knox Buxton both had 10.
“I think a lot of that’s our growth,” Ripley said of the team’s balance. “Last year we came over for the tournament and had some high expectations and came out 0-3. I think that was a wakeup call for us. Just because we were tall, athletic or whatever we wanted to call ourselves, it didn’t matter and these guys have been working their tails off. We had a really good offseason and because of (football) Coach (Adam) Jarecki and the team playing for the state championship, we didn’t get a lot of work. We just kind of jumped in the fire and went from there. We’ve been learning as we go.”
Wilson Hall jumped out to a comfortable lead in the early going, but the Monarchs, who dropped to 9-4, fought back. They trailed just 25-23 at halftime and took their only lead of the game on a Jeffery Ceasar jump shot from the left corner to make it 27-26 just 50 seconds into the second half.
WH regained the lead on a couple of Burton layups and opened a 34-29 lead. However, Ceasar, who had a game high 23 points, drained a 3-point shot and hit a driving layup to tie the game at 34-34 with 7:48 left.
Matthews hit a reverse layup and Burton followed up a miss to give Wilson Hall a 4-point cushion at 38-34. It was leading 40-36 when MHS left-handed freshman Lovell Stevenson canned a trey to make it 40-39 with 3:47 to go. The Barons responded with Jones DesChamps canning a 3 13 seconds later and Buxton sinking a 3 from the left corner with 3:12 to go. When Matthews hit another driving layup, WH led 48-39 with 2:42 to go.
Patrick Clark, who is in his first season as head coach at Manning, said the Monarchs have to become a more consistent all-around team.
“We’ve got to learn to play defense from start to finish and not in spurts,” Clark said. “We had a lot of defensive breakdowns in this game, just doing things we’re not taught. It’s not basketball. To defeat that, obviously we’re going to have to work on it.
“Again, a slow start got us. It’s hard to compete against teams like that when you have a slow start and then on top of that, you’re scoring in spurts. I don’t know if it’s just a series of the last few days, but we’ve got to get used to that. Most of these kids play AAU. The bottom line is we have to play better, we have to get better. We have to come out with some intensity and stop play to our opponents’ strengths and toward what we do best.”
Ceasar was the only double-figure scorer for Manning, Stevenson finished with seven.
Manning won its first three tournament games by double figures as well, beating Hartsville 76-61, AAAAA Stall 65-52 and Class A Clarendon County rival Scott’s Branch 71-51. Clark hopes his team has learned from the tournament.
“I’m proud of them staying in the game and battling, but we’ve got to learn how to do two things,” he said. “We’ve got to learn how to listen, and we’ve got to learn how to execute. If we learn to do those two things very well, we’ll be a tough team.”
Ripley was pleased with how his team answered the call in the final four minutes of the game.
“Jones struggled early, but he’s like one of our sparkplugs,” Ripley said of DesChamps. “He hit one in the corner and then Knox came down here and hit one. His shooting at the free throw line was big for us (7 of 8 in the final 33 seconds). We’ve struggled some with that this season.”
DesChamps finished with six points for the Barons, and Tucker Burnette had four.
WILSON HALL
Humphries 13, DesChamps 6, Matthews 10, Buxton 10, Burnette 4, Burton 12.
MANNING
Ceasar 23, Cooper 4, Carter 4, Hampton 3, T. Green 2, Stevenson 7, Thompson 2.
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