High school basketball playoffs: Pickens ends the season of Colts, Lady Colts; Dalton can’t handle defending 5A champs in first round loss

Published 9:00 pm Wednesday, February 21, 2024

Christian Heritage played Taylor County in the first round of the boys Class A DII playoffs on Wednesday. For a full story from that game, click here.

Boys Kell 90, Dalton 41

Dalton drew the toughest team in the state in the first round of the Class 5A playoffs, and it showed.

Defending Class 5A champion Kell (24-3) blasted Dalton (13-14) 90-41 Wednesday night in the opening round of the state playoffs, ending Dalton’s season.

Kell scored 11 points in the first minute of the game and held a 30-5 lead after just a quarter. The Longhorns led 49-12 at halftime and 76-27 after three quarters.

RJ Storey led Dalton with 13 points, Drew Snyder scored 10.

Kell’s Jaylen Colon led the Longhorns with 26 points.

Kell also has the top point guard in the state, CJ Brown, who signed with South Florida.

Dalton put together a season turnaround to go from 4-11 to winning nine of 10 to reach the playoffs, but ran into a tough matchup in the first round.

Pickens 67, Coahulla Creek 53

Pickens (21-8) pulled away in the fourth quarter to defeat Coahulla Creek (19-9) 67-53 Wednesday night in the first round of the Class 3A playoffs, ending the Colts’ season.

Creek trailed 15-12 after one and 30-24 at halftime. The Colts cut the deficit to 49-47 entering the fourth, but the Dragons outscored Coahulla 18-7 in the final frame to pull away for the win and advance to the Sweet 16.

Carter Quarles led Creek with 14 points. Andrew Russell and Teagan Houser each scored nine.

Coahulla finishes the year 19-9 and made a return to the state playoffs for the first time since 2019. Creek finished second in Region 6-3A during the regular season, but had to play without Chase Ward, the region player of the year, in the region tournament after Ward’s year was ended with a hand injury. The Colts fell in the region semifinals and had to go on the road to Pickens in the first round.

Creek finished with an 11-win improvement over its 8-17 record of a season ago.

Girls Pickens 71, Coahulla Creek 46

Coahulla Creek (18-9) had its season ended with a 71-46 loss against Pickens (25-4) on the road in the first round of the Class 3A playoffs Wednesday.

Pickens is the second seed in a region that includes four of the top-10 ranked teams in Class 3A. Pickens fell to Wesleyan, the second-ranked team in the state, in the Region 7-3A title game.

Coahulla trailed 15-7 after a quarter and 29-20 at halftime.

The Lady Colts wrap up the season with an 18-9 record and at one point went on a nine-game win streak.