Second night of Franklin County Tournament sees Phil Campbell girls, Red Bay boys advance to championship round
On the second night of the Franklin County Tournament, a couple of dominant, heavy-handed knockouts by the Phil Campbell varsity girls’ basketball team and Red Bay’s varsity boys sent the two squads to their respective tournament championship games, which will be played on Saturday night.
Thursday’s night’s varsity contests featured Red Bay vs. Phil Campbell in the girls’ game and host Tharptown vs. Red Bay in the boys’ matchup. The “visiting” team on both occasions ended up the victor by a wide margin.
In the girls’ contest between RBHS and PCHS, the Lady Bobcats went up by double figures early and never looked back. Phil Campbell quadrupled Red Bay’s first quarter total of four points and at halftime led 31-8.
The second half saw PCHS outscore RBHS 19-5 and the Lady Bobcats were able to cruise to a 50-13 win in the tournament semifinal.
The Lady Bobcats used an intense press defense against Red Bay Thursday night, causing a lot of turnovers and converting those to points in transition. Phil Campbell head coach Craig Thomas said the press has proven effective for his team lately.
“We didn’t press the whole first half of the season; now these last few games we’ve started pressing, and it’s thrown people off. We’ve been mixing it up,” he said.
Thomas added that his team, overall, is playing well right now and making fewer mistakes, a trend he hopes to see continue into the Franklin County Tournament championship game.
“We’ve improved a ton. We’re shooting the ball better right now, and we’ve had fewer turnovers,” he told the Franklin Free Press. “When you shoot the ball well and don’t turn it over, you’re usually in pretty good shape.”
Layla Baker was Phil Campbell’s top shooter in the game, scoring a game-high 13 points. Georgia Motes had nine points for PCHS, and senior Leela Baker, whom Thomas praised for her work in the middle, scored eight points in the win.
Kamryn Kuykendall with seven scored over half of Red Bay’s points in the defeat.
Up next for Phil Campbell will be the winner of the Belgreen and Tharptown semifinal contest, set to be played at 7 p.m. on Friday night. Whichever team the Lady Bobcats end up facing, there are a few things they will have to execute in order to take home the Franklin County Tournament title.
“Our ball movement has got to be a little better,” Thomas said. “Tonight we moved the ball extremely well at times, other times we kind of just sat and held it. So we’ve got to get a little bit better at the ball movement.
“And we’ve got to hit shots,” he added. “We’ve got to attack them from inside out, and when we get wide open looks out here, it’s just a matter of whether you make it or you don’t—make it or go home.”
The varsity girls’ Franklin County Tournament championship game is scheduled to tip off at 5 p.m. on Saturday, January 17.
The nightcap Thursday night was the semifinal contest between the Tharptown boys and Red Bay.
Much like the earlier girls’ game, one team took a huge first half lead and never looked like surrendering it. In this game it was Red Bay that jumped on Tharptown early.
Up 11-3 after the first quarter, the Tigers really started to pull away in the second, outscoring the Wildcats 21-3 to take a 32-6 advantage into the locker room at halftime.
The second half looked a lot like the second quarter: Red Bay outpaced THS 18-7 in the third and 11-4 in the fourth to push the margin to 44 points by the final buzzer. Final score: 61-17 to the Tigers.
Red Bay head coach John Torisky said he was proud of the way his team played Thursday night, showing maximum effort throughout the game and maintaining the Tigers usual level of production.
“Offensively we’ve really been pretty good all year, so tonight we just challenged the guys to do some different things defensively and they responded,” Torisky said. “The main thing we were worried about was how can we get stops? And tonight I thought the energy was really good on defense.
“Hopefully tonight gives them a little more confidence defensively for the next game, but we’ll see what happens. I just like how hard we played tonight, thought we had a lot of energy, and we had 10 guys getting in and out which is always good,” he added.
Of the 10 players the Tigers put out on the floor, it’s no surprise Khalil Luster finished as the game’s top scorer with 17 points. Senior Jaxon Vinson also hit double figures for RBHS, ending the game with 13 points. Collectively, Red Bay hit seven three-pointers.
Evin Lawson finished as Tharptown’s top scorer in the loss with eight points.
Up next, Red Bay aims to defend its Franklin County Tournament crown against the winner of Phil Campbell and Belgreen. PCHS and BHS are set to play the final semifinal at 8:30 p.m. Friday night. The championship game is scheduled for Saturday at 6:45 p.m.