Phoenix move near the top of Region 7-4A
The Sonoraville High School basketball team is suddenly one of the hottest teams in Region 7-4A.
And that has the Phoenix in the upper echelon of the standings when the second half of league schedule began Tuesday night for all six of the schools.
Using a big fourth quarter Friday evening before a packed house at The Furnace, the Phoenix rallied for a 59-53 victory over Heritage to close out the first part of their Region games with a threegame winning streak.
“We are very excited about the potential here to finish strong down the stretch and hopefully keep playing for a while,” Sonoraville head basketball coach Brent Mashburn said. “But we’ve got to keep working. Our Region has a lot of parity. I mean if you watch Cedartown play, you would never know their record (0-15) is what it is because they’re talented and they compete. But this is a good Region from top to bottom.
“You’ve got to bring it every night, it doesn’t matter whether you’re home or away or who you’re playing, you’ve got to bring it. And if you do, you have a chance and if you don’t, you’re likely to get beat. But we do feel good about this run we’re on right now and hopefully we can keep it going and even build on it down the stretch here.”
He was referring to this three-game streak that has taken them from the bottom of the race to third place in the 7-4A and left them a game behind both Southeast Whitfield County and Central with those two teams the ones Sonoraville plays this week.
Those schools also happen to be the two teams that the Big Red lost to at the outset of league play a couple of weeks ago. This time, though, they also have both of them at home with a 7:30 p.m. tip-off Tuesday night against Southeast Whitfield (details of that game were not available at press time) and then they end a three-game homestand Friday night with an 8:30 p.m. meeting versus Central.
The Phoenix put themselves in their current position with two big wins last week, beginning Tuesday night when they went to Northwest Whitfield and rocked the Bruins, 77-54, before they
came back home Friday to edge the Generals.
In the victory over Heritage, the Phoenix trailed 44-42 going into the fourth period but outslugged Heritage, 179, in the final eight minutes to close the first half of the league north of .500.
Senior guard Brant Bryant, starting in place of junior guard Jaxon Pate who wasn’t in the lineup, led the way at the end with five of his eight in the quarter on two makes — a 3-pointer and a field goal.
Junior Donovan McDaniel and senior forward Ethan Hibberts also had four points each as the Phoenix were 6-of6 from the free throw line to put it away.
Sonoraville had three guys in double figures with sophomore guard Elijah Woods scoring 14 while McDaniel added 12 and Jordan Storey, thanks to three 3-pointers, closed with 11.
Bryant and Hibberts finished the night with eight apiece but scored nine of their combined 16 in the final quarter.
With five players scoring in the first quarter, the Phoenix got off to a good start against the Generals, taking a 16-9 lead at the end of it. Storey had five points, including one shot from long distance, in the period while McDaniel and Woods had four more on two makes each.
From that point on, Heritage shooting guard Kaleb Gallman would score 28 of his game-high 31 to keep the Generals in the game. He got 13 of those in the second period alone when the visitors topped Sonoraville, 18-11 to tie the game at 27 at halftime.
With Gallman and Cooper Bell scoring all 17 of their third quarter points, Heritage outdid Sonoraville, 17-15, in the third to lead by a basket going into the fourth.
Mashburn said there is a lot of basketball remaining so they have to continue to work on upping their game. He said the offensive contributions everyone has made when they’re on the court is one reason the Phoenix won 14 of their first 20 games this
year.
“We are blessed with pretty good balance,” Mashburn said. “We have some guys that have had good seasons for us and good careers for us, but we don’t have to rely on that one guy every night to get us 15 or get us 20 (points). We have multiple guys that we feel like we can run out there and we can get double figures from them.
“That’s a real benefit as a coach to have multiple options and I think it makes us hard to guard. The more you can give an opposing (team) to deal with, the better off you are.”
Mashburn said with just five games left in the schedule and then the Region tournament and then, hopefully, the playoffs, they have to keep the pedal mashed to the floor.
“We need to just keep getting better,” Mashburn said. “There’s so much parity in our Region that you want to be playing well at the end. I do think over the last month or so, we’ve gotten much better at the defensive end and that is good to see. I think that was kind of a struggle for us early on and midway through the season, but I think we are starting to figure out some of the things we want to do defensively and that’s helped.
“But in this Region, you got to win at home and that makes every home game big. And you’ve got to try and steal a couple (of wins) on the road and that’s what we’re going to try and do. We were in position early in Region to win a couple of close games on the road but couldn’t quite get it done, so we’ll keep working on that. But I feel like we’ve put ourselves in a good place with this little run. We just want to keep it going.”
The drive for the top spots in the upcoming Region tournament are still very much up in the air to start the final three weeks of play.
Southeast Whitfield and Central entered this week 4-1 in the Region and Sonoraville was alone in third place at 3-2 and a game above both Heritage and Northwest, which are 2-3. Cedartown is 0-5 but the Bulldogs have been in just about every game.
The Phoenix are 14-6 on the year.