Coming off three days of practice, Calhoun rolls past Tigers
— Coming off just three days of full practice together, the Calhoun Yellow Jackets opened play in the Rome News-Tribune Holiday Festival on Wednesday night at Berry College, and despite looking a little rusty and winded at times, earned a solid 72-56 win over Darlington to advance to the semifinals.
The Jackets (1-0) played Rome on Thursday with a berth in the finals on the line. (For details on that game, see Saturday’s Calhoun Times.)
Due to the Calhoun football team’s Class AAA State Championship run that ended last Friday with a win over Washington County in the Georgia Dome, Calhoun coach Vince Layson didn’t get his full team together for their first practice until Saturday. He said it was a little bit of a question mark what to expect from his guys on Wednesday, but overall, he was happy with the results.
“Coming in here after just three days and many of the guys coming off a high of winning a state championship, there were a lot of unknowns,” said Layson. “One thing I know now is we aren’t in basketball shape yet. But we competed hard, and I think we did a great job on the defensive end.”
The game was tight throughout the first half with Calhoun trailing 16-15 at the end of the first quarter before leading 38-34 at the half with neither team holding more than a seven-point lead at any point in the first two periods.
But Calhoun came out of the locker room and stretched out the lead to 13 with a 9-0 run and would not let the Tigers (6-4) get any closer than nine again.
“We made some adjustments at the half, and I challenged the guys to come out and get three straight stops to start the third quarter,” said Layson. “I think that was a big turning point to give us a lot of momentum. We had some blown assignments in the first half, but I think we did a good job of limiting them to one shot in the second half and getting 50-50 balls. We went after it in the second half.”
Ray Reeves led eight different Calhoun scorers with 18 points, 12 of those coming in the second half. Kaelan Riley and Malik Lawrence each scored 10, and Chapin Rierson battled through some early foul trouble to add nine.
The Jackets used a lot of bodies in the win, which is a bit of a difference from last year’s Class AA State runner-up team which used mostly 5-7 players the majority of the time. Layson said it was nice to be able to use that many guys that can contribute, especially early in the season.
“I think our depth was one of our keys to getting a victory tonight,” said Layson. “We used a lot of guys, which is a lot differ- ent than last year. Having 10 guys that can play big minutes helps a lot. And we love tournament play. You have to fight for your life each night to survive and advance. You find your basketball legs quickly, and playing quality opponents will test us as well.”
Will Sparks led Darlington with 13 points. Seth Little added 12, and Kyle Tackeberry scored 10.
Other scorers for the Jackets included Jireh Wilson with eight and Dylan Greeson with seven.
Layson said his team would continue to work to get better in the early schedule.
“We’re going to focus on fundamentals and playing as a unit,” said Layson, who is starting his third year as Calhoun head coach. “We did that tonight. As long as we’re relentless with our effort, we’re going to be fine going forward.”