Andalusia claims 4th
Published 12:56 am Saturday, January 17, 2009
The Bulldogs remain flawless in their area after defeating Clarke County Friday night in Andalusia, 58-48.
Andalusia and Clarke County both started the game in a low scoring first quarter, 10-7.
“Nothing is a guarantee with us,” Andalusia coach Richard Robertson said. “We’re behind a lot of times at halftime and you’ve got to come in and make adjustments.”
Robertson said he had to change a few things in the first half to make things go Andalusia’s way.
“The thing was that we had to change the original plan in the first half,” he said. “We had to change it because we blew it up.
“We go to practice and practice two days and switch the position of two players and they lost their focus,” he said. “These are the people that have been here for four years.”
But, the pace picked up a little bit in the second as Andalusia put up 18 points compared to Clarke’s 24.
Down by three in the third quarter, Andalusia (16-2, 4-0 in Class 4A, Area 3) brought it to 32-31 and with 6:26 left, Clarke County took a timeout to regroup.
Three minutes later, Clarke County took another timeout after Andalusia put up nine points compared to two for Clarke County.
Robertson said during the second half, his team guarded players on Clarke County that were essential for them to win.
“The second half we went out and dealt with specific people,” Robertson said. “With the way they play, they substitute freely, but you have to determine when certain people come in during the ball game.
“You’ve got to deny them the ball and that’s what we did. We were out to keep Nos. 21 (Burroughs) and 24 (J. McConnell) from shooting the ball. They were the two we had to stop to start with.”
At the end of the third, the Bulldogs got out to a monstrous 15-point lead, 49-34.
Andalusia would put up an additional nine points on the night to seal the victory.
Some of the positives, Robertson said, were that his team came back from falling behind and made shots.
“We came back when we had to and caught up and went ahead,” he said. “Whenever we see danger, than we try to do what we’re supposed to do. If you play here, you’re going to have to do it from the start. We went to that alternate plan, which was our emergency plan, went to it and went up in the game.”
Leading scorers for Andalusia were Nico Johnson with 18 points and Leslie James with 12.
For Clarke County, J. Burroughs had 11 and C. McCaskill had 10.
Andalusia continues its area play Tuesday night against Hillcrest-Evergreen. Tip off is at 4:30 p.m. with the B-team.