Basketball Jones Senior’s big night lifts Panthers past Ramblers
The Ridgeland Panthers were looking to score two upset wins over the top two teams in Region 6-AAAA last week, but had to settle for just one upset as they improved to 4-5 in region play (6-14 overall) to start the next-to-last week of the regular season.
Northwest boys 79, Ridgeland 56
The Panthers chopped a 12-point firstquarter deficit down to 39-33 at halftime on Tuesday, but the homestanding Bruins would outscore their guests, 22-9, in the third to blow the game open.
Markeith Montgomery had 15 points in the loss for Ridgeland. Fred Norman added 14 points, while Markeion Jones collected nine.
Ridgeland 59, LaFayette 47
A pre-game switch to a triangle defense, as suggested by Ridgeland girls’ head coach Ryan Pipes, turned out to be the right move on Friday as the Panthers got a huge night from Jones to knock off the Ramblers.
Jones, who recently became the newest member of Ridgeland’s exclusive 1,000-point club, hit back-toback 3-pointers in the opening quarter and the Panthers would never trail in the game.
They led by as many as 15 in the first half before going into the locker room with a 2922 lead. The Ramblers would slice the gap down to four on two different occasions, but each time Jones would answer with a big bucket to right the ship and kill LaFayette’s momentum.
He buried three more cold-blooded triples to close out the third quarter, boosting the Panthers’ advantage to 45-36 and Ridgeland would stretch things out from there.
Jones finished with 26 points and six 3-pointers. Christian Battle had 14 points and Jalyn Shelton scored seven in the paint and helped the Panthers tip the scale in the battle on the boards.
“We’ve had a few disappointing losses
this year, so to pull out a win like this one this late in the year will give us a lot of confidence for the final few games and going into the (region) tournament,” Ridgeland head coach Matt King said. “LaFayette’s got
a great team and I’m sure they’ll do great going on from this point forward.”
Ridgeland will head to Jasper on Friday to take on the Pickens Dragons at 7:30 p.m. before hosting Trion in a non-region home game at 5:30 on Saturday. They will close out the regular season with two games against the
Heritage Generals, at home on Tuesday, Jan. 31 and in Ringgold on Friday, Feb. 3. Friday’s game is a makeup from a game postponed by weather back in early January.
Jones will be recognized for his 1,000-point milestone during the Panthers’ home game against Heritage on Jan. 31.