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Florala struggles to stay in area contention
Published Wednesday, January 14, 2009
Photo by Justin Schuver
Florala’s Eric Bess charges down the court during the Pleasant Home game Jan. 9. The Wildcats play Kinston this Friday night.
Florala is still trudging away this season and with another area game Friday night, they are hoping to get to chalk a second win on the board.
The Wildcats (1-12, 1-2 in Class 1A, Area 3) faced McKenzie Tuesday night and lost, 65-52.
“We got beat by 13 and we were down by 24 at one point in time and actually came back a little bit,” Florala coach Brad Garner said of the game. “It was the same old scenario, missed shots and turnovers.
“It sounds like good scoring, but we only had three other guys that scored and two of them were two apiece,” he said. “We had three, but we just didn’t get any other points from people.”
Garner added the main problem Tuesday night took place on the offensive side of the ball.
“Their speed became such a huge factor and I think our biggest problem offensively, everything stemmed from that was not handling the ball strong and not creating shots for ourselves,” he said. “And having to take shots from people in the base. When you don’t make many for them and it seems like we made a lot, but 52 points is not bad.
“It was 51-29 at the end of the third, so our hole was already dug so to speak before we ever got there,” he said. “We were able to score some point in the first quarter, but they got a lot of fast break opportunities ad we’re not gong to defend McKenzie real well in those situations as fast as they are.”
Leading scorers were Dustin Hinson with 20 points, Zack Fleming and Eric Bess had 10 points apiece.
On the game Friday night against Kinston, Garner said his team can’t think they can win again based on their past game.
“Kinston is the win we have this year,” Garner said. “They’re obviously a pretty good basketball team. We can’t think that we’ve beaten them one time and that we can again. They’re going to shoot it well and they’re going to shoot it a lot better at their gym than they did over here.”
Garner said despite the state of his team right now, Florala is still working on getting better.
“We’re close to being able to beat those teams and being able to win a couple back to back,” he said. “We’re just not there yet. We keep working on it and I think athletically we match up better with Kinston than we do with McKenzie.
“I’ve seen Kinston more than just when we played them,” he said. “I know they can shoot the ball well and we’re going to have to get out and defend them on that.”
Tip off Friday night in Kinston is at 4:30 p.m. with the B-team.
Comments
Posted by dlgibbs (anonymous) on January 15, 2009 at 10:17 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Why is it that Florala basketball scores were not in the paper on Wednesday, 1/14/08. They played Mckenzie on Tuesday and there was no mention of their scores.
Additionally when there is some minor mention of Florala basketball it is only regarding the varsity boys team. Last time I checked Florala had a junior varsity boys team, a girl's varsity team and boys varsity team. The girls and jv scores are never mentioned when this paper finally puts something in about Florala basketball.
Posted by tigergirl (anonymous) on January 15, 2009 at 2:11 p.m. (Suggest removal)
good luck with that i use to play for florala and if you are not a varsity boys team or a football team they act like you don't exist. it has always been that way and we use to complain all the time too and still not a thing ever got wrote
Posted by tigerfan (anonymous) on January 16, 2009 at 9:33 a.m. (Suggest removal)
I agree with you tigergirl. My daughter plays for RL and we are never mentioned unless we got creamed by someone. I am very proud of our boys team but the girls play just as hard. The B-team boys work hard as well. The Star news doesn't cover county schools fairly. I realize it is the ANDALUSIA STAR NEWS but it covers the whole county. They don't mind calling you and asking you to subscribe to the paper. So they should cover all schools the same way. Not just their picks.
Posted by tigergirl (anonymous) on January 16, 2009 at 12:03 p.m. (Suggest removal)
AMEN TIGERFAN I remmeber that one year we made it to the first round of the play offs and not a thing was mentioned about the girls going but it was all over about the boys well that was until we got killed during the first game and you better believe that was covered but they never did say that we played well to get there just that we where not strong enough to be there. And trust me when you are at that age it makes you fell like girls are not good enough for anything and it does hurt. i have told the star news that they can stop calling me until they are fare with the way they do their sports and show everyone all the same because these kids all live in this county and try to do the county and their school proud and they all work just as hard as the varsity boys do.
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