Titans build early lead, hold on in win
“You have to have some real competitive focus. We knew they were coming, and our kids held them off. That’s what it’s all about.”
Jacksonville Coach Victor Joyner
JACKSONVILLE — As he has many times this season, Victor Joyner got that feeling in his stomach that his lead was about to vanish.
After building an early double-digit lead, Joyner watched as Vilonia ate up that gap in the second quarter and again in the final minutes.
But unlike some of the other times, Joyner’s stomach was wrong. His Jacksonville squad never surrendered the lead and hung on to end its regular season with a 56-50 win over conference-leading Vilonia.
“You have to have some real competitive focus,” Joyner said. “We knew they were coming, and our kids held them off. That’s what it’s all about.”
Jacksonville (18-11, 9-5 5A-Central) burst out to an 18-6 lead behind eight first-quarter points by Taylor Connor on cuts and layups.
That’s right when Vilonia (20-7, 11-2) found its footing in the game.
Late in the first quarter into the second, the Eagles went on a 9-0 run to cut the lead to 18-15. But just as Joyner was starting to get that feeling, the Titans answered with five quick points from Justice Moore and closed the first half on a 12-2 run.
The Eagles came out of halftime with another run in them, closing the lead to 39-34, punctuated by a Josh Lawrence slam the home fans couldn’t help but stand and applaud.
The third quarter was Jacksonville’s lowest scoring with just seven points, all coming from Bryson Hammond. In the fourth quarter, the Titans had another answer to an Eagles run, led by five points from Jason Fox and Jayce Tillman.
“Teams like that, they come back when you get passive,” Joyner said. “And that’s what we were trying to get them not to do. They got passive for a little while, let them close the gap. [I] called a timeout and reminded them our gameplan was to attack, to attack all of them off the dribble and then once they started doing it, we got back to leading.”
Caden Kendall-Allen was Jacksonville’s lone player in double figures with 12 points, but eight Titans scored at least once, including four players with eight or more points.
Friday was Vilonia’s second defeat in conference play and its first since Jan. 26. After falling to the Eagles in double overtime in their first meeting, Joyner said the win showed his Titans what they can do with the state tournament next week.
“I tell them all the time we got the pieces,” he said. “[We] just got to have that backbone, that grit, that competitiveness and sometimes, I don’t think we compete.
“[I’m] trying to get all five of them to compete like [Vilonia] does every possession and know your roles. You gotta accept the roles and we’re trying to get kids now to accept what they can and cannot do. And that’s what we’re identifying a little better now.”