Powdersville Nips Rival Christ Church 58-57 In SCHSL AAA Boys’ Basketball Upper State Championship

By Billy G. Baker

Publisher

Florence—Powdersville defeated the Christ Church boys’ basketball team for the third time this season, 58-57, to advance to the AAA state finals against Keenan to be played on March, 7 in the Florence Civic Center at 8 p.m. and this game was highly competitive from start-to-finish.

Powdersville head coach Austin Anderson shared his thoughts after the game, “I felt like we played good transition defense, and we made things happen on offense in the second half and it was just an awesome win for our program,” said the coach. “We played Christ Church twice in our region tis season. We won by two the first game and 10 the second game so we have competitive games with them all season.

“This game required mental execution and solid defense and a game like this will get us ready to play a well-coached team like Keenan,” said Coach Anderson. “We need to play well against them for sure.

“The biggest improvement in this team over last year is that we really pride in our defense,” said Coach Anderson. “We do not always take as much pride in our transition game but we do in our defense. Man, we are just a hungry basketball team and we came into the season with some big goals.

“Our key against Keenan is to rebound and execute and keep our defense at a high level,” said Coach Anderson. “They like to control the basketball and they are patient on offense.”

Christ Church head coach John Butler, is one year removed from the Class A state champion ship success, and his team came within a point of sending the game into over-time. “I think the difference in the game was they made more free throws then we did,” said Coach Butler. “When you lose a game by one-point you are drawn to that fact. They hit most of their free throws, and we didn’t, and this was the difference in the game.

“We had only one senior starter tonight, guard Adam Brown,” said Coach Butler. “We’ll work hard to keep improving with a goal of getting back to the championship next season.”

(To Coach Butler’s point the Cav’s made only two-of-seven free throws while Powdersville converted 12-of-16 free throws.)  

 The game went back-and-forth throughout the contest, and one shot the crowd at this game will never forget, was a 75-foot desperation heave by Christ Church player Jonathan Perry as time expired that swished the net, just one point shy of tying the game!

  

Powdersville took a 16-12 lead after the first period on the strength of three three- pointers made by bombers Jaleel McGee, Quan Burton, and Micah Williams. Williams was on fire with 8 first quarter points. David Dixon led Christ Church in the opening period with two three-pointers.

 The second quarter was up-and-down, and run-an-gun as both teams battled to a 32-32 tie at the break.

In the second quarter Adam Brown got things started off for the Cavaliers with a three-point shot to make the deficit 19-15. Then the Patriots went on a 7-0 run to lead 23-17 with 6:06 left in the period. In the second period Powdersville was led by Burton’s five points, Landon Sullivan’s five points and McGee’s four points to pace the attack.

Christ Church was led in the second quarter by Anthony Atkins with seven points, Perry with seven points, and Adam Brown contributed four second quarter points as the team scored 20 points to get back in the game.

Powdersville won the third period 15-11 to take a 47-43 lead into the final period. Christ Church took a 34-32 lead on a put-back basket by Dixon on the first basket of the period. Powdersville scored the next two baskets in the paint, on baskets from Burton and Jaleel McGee, to regain the lead at 38-34.

A deep corner three-point shot by Perry gave the Cav’s a 43-42 lead with 48 seconds left in the third period. Powdersville got a three-point shot from Quan Burton to go up 45-43 with 24 seconds left, and they extended it to a four- point lead, when Quan Burton made two free throws in the final seconds of the quarter.

The final quarter was physical, intense and both teams left it all on the floor. The first basket of the period came on a lay-up from Cav’s big man Reid Hipp to cut the deficit to 47-45. Powdersville made the next two baskets to go up 53-45 on a three-point shot by Landon Sullivan and a lay-up by Von Burton with 6:03 left in the game. Christ Church did not go away scoring six points in a row to tie the game at 53 with 2:24 remaining. During the 6-0 run the Cav’s got baskets from Atkins, Brown, and Perry.

Both teams made one free throw each over the next minute to remain tied at 54 with 1:30 left in the game. McGee hit a short jumper 52 seconds left to put the Patriots up 56-54 and then McGee made two critical free throws with 2.1 seconds left to give his team an important four -point lead at 58-54.

Then Perry’s high arcing three- point desperation shot at the buzzer, swished the net cleanly from at least 80 feet, just a point shy of sending the game into over-time.

The top scorers for Powdersville included Quan Burton with 15 points while McGee contributed 13 points and Williams had 11. Sullivan scored 8 points while Colton Kregar had two points.

Christ Church was led by Johnathan Perry and Anthony Atkins with 17 and 16 points respectively. Dixon was also in double figures with 10 points . Brown had 8 points followed by Reid Hipp with five points and Duke football commitment Jude Hall had two points.