Tigers down Lions in battle of state’s top-ranked teams
HUNTSVILLE — As Silsbee coach Joe Sigler tried to dole out instructions to his team before the fourth quarter of the Tigers’ slugfest against Yates on Saturday afternoon, one of his assistant coaches had less technical but much louder advice:
“We do not lose! We do not lose!” the assistant shouted repeatedly.
Silsbee, the No. 1 team in the state, took off from there, eclipsing No. 2 Yates 120-103 in the Region III-4A final at Johnson Coliseum.
The final score doesn’t do justice for a game in which neither team had more than a six-point lead before the fourth quarter and the lead changed hands 10 times.
In fact, Yates (25-3) entered the fourth quarter with an 83-82 edge and appeared to be on the way to punching its ticket to state for the first time since 2014 after a quick three to open the quarter.
Then, the defending state champions turned it on, outscoring the Lions 38-17 in the final seven minutes. Battle of heavyweights
Silsbee (28-8) will appear in its third consecutive state tournament when it plays in the Class 4A semifinals Friday at San Antonio’s Alamodome. According to players and coaches on both sides, that state tournament actually started Saturday afternoon.
“The teams that make it to state will all be good, but I don’t know that they’ll get challenged like this,” Yates coach Greg Wise said. “They’re the No. 1 team in the state, but I don’t think we’re too far behind.”
The much-anticipated showdown, which was a rematch of last year’s regional final that Silsbee won 94-84, wasn’t played in the cavernous Alamodome, but the estimated 4,000 fans inside Johnson Coliseum gave Silsbee the same feel it will get in San Antonio.
“This really was a state game,” said Silsbee sophomore guard Braelon Bush, who had a game-high 37 points. “It was the two topranked teams in the state. This was the game everyone’s been waiting for, so it felt just like a game at state to us, and that’s how we treated it.” A ‘what-if ’ situation
When Wise watches the state tournament, it will be tough for him not to wonder what might have been. Yates’ 6-8 forward, Mitchell Seraille, played just eight minutes in the loss because of foul trouble.
Jock Hughes did his best to pick up the slack, scoring a team-high 29 points, but Seraille’s absence left a big hole at the rim defensively that Silsbee’s quick guards used to their advantage.
Besides Bush’s 37, junior Devon McCain scored 36 — including 25 in the second half — for the Tigers.
“When (Seraille) went out, we took control,” Bush said. “Mitchell is a great player, and we all knew it would be big if we could get him out of the game with foul trouble. That opened things up for us, and we took advantage.”