Mountaineers, Bruins pick up tourney wins

Published 8:30 pm Monday, November 21, 2016

With strong contributions from two freshmen and senior leadership making up for the loss of a key player, the North Murray High School basketball team defeated Heritage 66-49 in the first round of the Dalton Thanksgiving Classic.

Sophomore center Luke Griffin went down with an apparent knee injury in the first quarter, forcing freshman Chaisen Buckner to play extended minutes in the post in his first varsity game. He and fellow freshman Ladd McConkey played significant roles and the team leaned on its seniors to open the season with a victory.

“(Griffin) goes down in the first couple minutes of the game and it would have been easy for us to panic because he’s a big part of what we do and it’s hard to replace 6-5 and 290,” North Murray coach Tim Ellis said. “But I can’t be more proud of the way our guys responded. The seniors were rock solid and the younger guys came in and played well with the older guys helping them through it. That’s huge and speaks a lot to our maturity and kids growing up and taking ownership in things.”

The Mountaineers (1-0) led 11-7 after one quarter led by two 3-pointers from Tate Tipton and a couple key buckets from Brody Frazier. Heritage came back to tie the game at 20 before North Murray closed the half with five consecutive points by senior J.T. Langford to lead 25-20. Langford had a team-high 14 points in the win, nine of which came in the second quarter.

After Heritage (0-1) cut the lead to 27-26 early in the second half, the Mountaineers went on a 14-0 run to stretch the lead to 15, keyed by a couple 3-pointers by Frazier, who finished with 11 points and six rebounds. North Murray led 41-30 at the end of the third quarter.

Heritage came back to cut the lead to seven points with five minutes remaining in the game, but a 3-pointer by Langford put the lead back into double digits and allowed the Mountaineers to cruise to a comfortable win.

“They cut it to single digits and J.T. hit that big three off of penetration from Ladd,” Ellis said. “It would have been easy to hit the panic button there again, but these guys just don’t do that. Heritage is a really good team. They got the bigs and guards that can take you off the dribble. I thought we did a good job as far as containing the ball. It was a very good win for our program.”

Tipton also scored in double figures with 12 points, while Buckner had six points and six rebounds and McConkey had four points and seven assists. North Murray faces Dalton in the second round of the tournament tonight at 8:30.

Ellis said the key moving forward is to continue to progress after a solid opening performance.

“The key is not taking a step back,” Ellis said. “It’s November and we don’t want to hang our hat on a win in November, but it’s a start. It doesn’t matter how we play now, it’s how we play in February. With that being said, they set the bar and I am going to expect that every time.”

• Northwest Whitfield 88, East Paulding 79: Northwest Whitfield High School also won its first round game in the Dalton Thanksgiving Classic. The Bruins outlasted the Raiders in a high-scoring shootout to open the season.

“It was a roller coaster at times,” Northwest Whitfield coach Ryan Richards said. “A couple times it felt like we were going to pull away and we would make a mistake and give up a three. There was a lot of uncertainty and I felt like I was screaming at the top of my lungs sometimes trying to clean it up. But it’s the first game of the year and we learned tonight. We played 13 guys and got contributions out of all of them and that’s what we want.”

The Bruins were led by a strong first half from Alex Hooker, who scored 14 of his 18 points before halftime. Northwest got off to a fast start and led 24-16 after one quarter, which is what Hooker said will be the expectations for the team moving forward.

“Eighty-eight points is pretty good because coach wants us to score about 20 a quarter,” Hooker said. “We want to play so aggressively and fast-paced that we just keep scoring. So 88 points is good for the first game.”

The Raiders did a better job defensively in the second quarter as Northwest struggled at times with East Paulding’s press. East Paulding cut the lead to 39-35 at halftime led by three 3-pointers by Will Prater, who finished with a game-high 21 points.

Northwest has only recently gotten back several key players from the football team as the Bruins’ season ended with a 49-8 loss to Woodward Academy on Friday. Several players which will normally be starters came off the bench for the Bruins on Monday, including guard Luke Shiflett. The junior scored all of his team-high 20 points in the second half as he helped bring the ball up and break the Raiders’ pressure.

“Luke started for us the last two years so we knew out of all the football guys he would be the most ready, it’s just about conditioning for him,” Richards said. “Tanner Boyd is another guy who played a lot last year and we knew he could come in and he did a great job in the second half. Hooker had a great first half and really knocked down free throws and rebounded well.”

The Raiders briefly took a lead midway through the third quarter, but Shiflett started to heat up and scored the Bruins last seven points of the period to give them a 63-62 lead going into the fourth quarter. After East Paulding tied the game at 72 with a 3-pointer with four minutes to go, the Bruins went on a 12-2 run to take a 10-point lead on its way to the win.

Northwest Whitfield plays Cartersville in the second round of the tournament at 7 tonight. Richards said he hopes the team plays a little more steady as the tournament progresses.

“I want to see us getting a little smoother and cleaning up some of that uncertainty,” Richards said. “There was too much deer in the headlights looks tonight. So I’d like to see us play with more confidence.”