By Staff
Rob Griffin
For those of you who didn't know, Atmore hosted a round-robin basketball tournament this past weekend from December 9-11. It was a county tournament that included T.R. Miller, Flomaton, and W.S. Neal. Both the boys and girls teams from Atmore competed.
The Lady Blue defeated the W.S. Neal Eagles 49-30 in game one of the tourney Thursday night but dropped the next two games to Flomaton and Miller. Although they lost two games in the tournament, their season is far from over. There is still time to improve and have a good season. Despite the loss to Miller, coach Christi Nall said that she was pleased with the team's effort.
The boys, however, coached by William Brown fared much better. On Thursday night the Big Blue took on W.S. Neal themselves as senior Jeremy McCants and Quartez James both scored over 20 points each in the 73-59 win. Senior Larenzo Arnold and junior Chris Andrews chipped in with nine and eight points respectively.
On Friday night, ECHS took on Flomaton. The game started off slow with Atmore leading by a score of 13-8 at the end of the first quarter. From that point, Big Blue set off a flurry of points. Jeremy McCants and two juniors, Quartez James and Chris Andrews paced ECHS by scoring at least 20 points each in a dominant performance as Atmore downed Flomaton 81-53.
On Saturday night T.R. Miller got their chance to play ECHS. Although it was a close game, Atmore pulled ahead 37-31 on two Larenzo Arnold free throws right at the half although the second shot did not count due to a lane violation. Arnold, a senior, was on fire in the first half, scoring 15 points. In the second half, senior McCants and the rest of the team tightened up their game. Arnold stepped up in a big way scoring 22 points to go along with McCants' 25. Juniors Quartez James and Chris Andrews added ten points apiece to go with Andrews' double figure total in rebounds. Calvin Hartley and Jeremiah Lewis also chipped in six points each in the 80-63 win.
The All-Tournament Team included four Atmore players; Larenzo Arnold, Chris Andrews, Quartez James and MVP Jeremy McCants.