Dragons withstand ACHS challenge, advance to final
Clinton’s Hunter Rupert jacks a trey for the Dragons Friday night. (photo:Ricky Williams )
“It was nothing different than a regular season game with Clinton and Anderson County,” said Chris Lockard, Clinton’s head coach. “Emotions were high.
“I think both teams might have had a little bit of nerves. I don’t think either team played bad, but neither team played really well in the first half,” Lockard said.
The Dragons opened the game on an 8-1 run as Lane Harrison converted a traditional three-point play, Rishon Bright added a basket, and Jeremiah Blauvelt knocked down a 3-pointer. The Mavs rallied somewhat as Connor Martin, Carter Nelson, and Trent Strickland added baskets. A traditional three-point play from Ryan McGhee helped pull Anderson County to within seven at 18-11 at the end of the first quarter.
Scoring for Clinton slowed a bit in the second quarter as the teams traded baskets. The Mavs pulled to within four points at 20-16 following another traditional three-point play from McGhee.
A quick 9-0 run by the Dragons, highlighted by a pair of 3-pointers from Trace Thackerson, pushed the Clinton lead to 28-17. Martin and Tate Russell added scores for Anderson County inside of the three minute mark, but that was all of their scoring for the half. The Dragons managed just one basket the rest of the way but held a 33-23 lead at the half.
The third quarter opened much like the second, with each team trading baskets until the 4:36 mark of the quarter when Clinton went on a 16-2 run to close out the quarter to lead 57-35.
That proved to be as close as the Mavs could get as the Dragons outscored them 22-16 in the fourth quarter.
“We held [Jackson] Garner to no points in the first half,” said Derek Wallace, head coach of the Mavs. “The kids really focused and executed our game plan.
“We were missing Bryson [Vowell], who was out sick. We had some things to overcome, but we missed two box outs and missed a couple of easy shots or it could have been a four- or five-point game at the half,” Wallace said.
“In the second half, we had point-blank looks on the first two possessions and just missed them. They [Clinton] hit threes and it began to snowball like it can against Clinton,” Wallace said.
Lockard said, “In the third quarter we made a couple of changes, nothing crazy on our end; we just wanted to focus a little more on our transition and a couple of things on defense. I don’t know if that was the difference or all of a sudden we got hot from the perimeter.”
Clinton finished the game 17-32 from 3-point range, while Anderson County was 2-15 from beyond the arc.
Harrison and Thackerson led all scorers with 19 points each. Jackson Garner (12 points) and Bright (11 points) also reached double-digit scoring for Clinton.
Martin led Anderson County with 11 points.
With the win, the Dragons advanced to face Halls in the district championship and locked up a home region game on Saturday night at 7 p.m. The opponent was still to be decided as of press time.
AC 11 12 12 16 51
CHS 18 15 24 22 79
AC - Connor Martin (11), Carter Nelson (9), Ryan McGhee (8), Zeke West (7), Brandon McGhee (7), Tate Russell (4), Cole Russell (3), Trent Strickland (2)
CHS - Lane Harrison (19), Trace Thackerson (19), Jackson Garner (12), Rishon Bright (11), Hunter Rupert (6), Jeremiah Blauvelt (5), Dodi Truss (3), Teegan Bolinger (2), Kaden Ison (2)