RIVALRY RENEWED
♦ Rockmart sweeps games against county rival Cedartown
An energetic crowd was on hand Saturday afternoon to witness the rebirth of the rivalry between Rockmart and Cedartown on the basketball court. However, home court was not as advantageous in this matchup.
Rockmart’s varsity teams visited Cedartown’s Dawg Pound for a nonregion scrap and traveled home that evening with a pair of victories as the Lady Jackets won 49-40 and the Jackets topped the Bulldogs 67-46.
In the girls’ game, Cedartown took the lead early and got within three points of Rockmart late in the game but couldn’t finish down the stretch to overtake the Lady Jackets.
Rockmart’s girls (9-10) were behind 7-4 with three minutes left in the opening period before finishing up the quarter with a 12-8 lead and never trailed from then on.
Cedartown (3-10), which has felt the absence of regular starter Marycille Brumby most of this season, was given another punch to the gut Saturday when junior Makayla Jordan went down with a knee injury in the first period.
She went back in the game for a few seconds in the second quarter before collapsing on the floor in pain and being carried off by Cedartown girls’ coach Levi Wigley and not returning.
Rockmart was still left to fight off a determined Cedartown team that started off the second half with an 8-3 run and outscored the Lady Jackets 14-12 in the third, but the Lady Jackets kept pressing and finished ahead.
While it was a non-region game for both squads, Rockmart girls’ coach Andre Clark said the win was meaningful.
“It’s very important just to have the bragging rights and to keep your momentum going. Losing to your rival can hurt you some,” Clark said.
“What I like is that we didn’t completely fold, even though we were tired. We still found a way to win, and that’s what I’m most proud of because we’re going to need that. In this region that we’re in, if you’re not mentally tough you’re going to have some tough nights.”
Sky Myers led Rockmart with 22 points, including five 3-pointers. Analee Morris added 17 to the Lady Jackets’ tally, while Brandi Jones finished with 10 points and Zori Williams had three.
Kendal Pace paced Cedartown with 13 points, while Annakate Bussey had nine and Summer Knight had seven. Jordan scored four points before coming out of the game.
Rockmart’s dominance played out even more in the boys’ game as the Jackets spread the ball around and found the right shots to take a 13-4 lead in the first period and never look back.
Cedartown (6-9) found a rhythm in the second period and outscored the Jackets 15-13, punctuating the quarter with a 3-pointer at the buzzer from MJ Holiday.
But Rockmart’s Treylin Davis, coming off of three straight 30-plus point performances, scored seven of his team’s first nine points of the second half and got his team back on track. The sophomore finished with a gamehigh 21 points.
Ahead 38-25 midway through the third, Rockmart (12-7) kept adding to its lead, making it a much different matchup than when the two teams met at the Haralson County tournament before the end of the year.
That game wasn’t decided until Rockmart’s Jakari Clark hit a game-winning 3-pointer at the buzzer.
“We made shots and they didn’t make shots today. So I think it was a combination of both,” Rockmart coach Vic Calhoun said.
Calhoun said he wasn’t certain of victory until he substituted out his first group with about two minutes left in the game. With the bench players in, Trent Pace kept the momentum going with back-to-back 3’s.
“The reason that we were able to come out and perform the way we did with starters was because that JV group gives us trouble everyday at practice,” Calhoun said. “They’re deserving of some minutes. It was just a great program win for us, top to bottom.”
Damian Horton and Dennis Sims each finished with 10 points for Rockmart behind Davis, while Cam Ferguson had nine and Clark had six.
Cedartown was paced by Holiday’s 15 points, followed by Ronald Knight’s 11 and Jordan Johnson’s nine.