Panthers, Tigers tangle on Thursday
Published 12:00 am Tuesday, November 30, 2004
Georgiana and McKenzie are both coming off losses and searching for their first wins of the season. For one team, that search will come to an end Thursday night. The Tigers and the Panthers are going to renew their rivalry in Georgiana.
For both teams, this will be an opportunity to match-up with a team on their own level. In the Tigers games this season they have faced 4A Headland and squared off against 1A J.F. Shields on Tuesday.
McKenzie fell to Headland 58-20, while Georgiana lost to Greenville, 97-25.
The first teams to take the floor will be both schools b teams. From there the girls will take the floor and will square off.
For the Lady Panthers, it will be a chance to see if the extra practice has paid off.
"We had to improve on our offense, we aren't making our shots," said John Cheatham, coach of the Lady Panthers.
"We kind of got better in the second half against Greenville."
This will be the opportunity to play against a team their own size.
"McKenzie, I don't know what we have this year. If they have the team they had last year they are going to be tough," said Cheatham. "They had a good group of young ladies there and didn't have the experience at the time but they do now. It should be a very competitive game and we are looking to do a lot better. We've got two games under our belt and I think that we'll do pretty good in this one."
The main event of the night will be when the guys hit the court.
This will also be the first meeting between the two schools' first year coaches.
"We've just got a lot to work on. I see some improvement, but we've just got a lot to work on," said Brown. "The main thing is getting the kids in here and working on the things that we need to work on and being consistent. We've got a bigger crowd in here because we have a ballgame on Tuesday. We've had some out for various reasons, but if I figured that if I were going to get some playing time, I'd start being a little more punctual."
Before the Tigers face the Panthers, they had a game on Tuesday night against J.F. Shields.
"This is our first day back to practice," said Derek Roberts, coach of the Panthers. "We didn't practice over the holidays. I don't know very much about McKenzie, I'm going to watch them play tomorrow against Shields. My main concern though is my team."
For the Tigers,
it will also be the first chance to play a team within their region.
"My understanding is that we are pretty even," said Brown. "But I think that we have work to do to be even with them. That's based on the talent I saw on the football field. I know that doesn't normally translate to the basketball court, but I still think that we have some work that needs to be done."
For Roberts, his focus is going to be fixing the problems that his squad is dealing with and not worrying about what the other team is going to do.
"I'm worried about what we are going to do after coming off of a 72-point loss," said Roberts. "That was kind of devastating to us to lose by that many. I'm really trying to focus on what we are going to do and prepare ourselves instead of trying to figure out what they are going to do. I'm looking for our guys to come out and have the same enthusiasm they had against W.S. Neal."
Tipoff for the game is set for 4:30 p.m. on Dec. 2.