Jacksonville (AL) – Top-seeded Jacksonville puts together a show with its County Tournament debut
Al Muskewitz
Jacksonville was the No. 1 seed in the Calhoun County Tournament. They were the No. 1 seed, and they played like it Tuesday evening. Everyone is expecting Jacksonville to win this tournament. They were right last year when the Golden Eagles were again the top seed. However, they lost to Oxford in the final game. The Golden Eagles made it clear that they were not going to allow this to happen again and they opened the tournament by crushing eighth-seeded Saks, 86-39.
The 11 3-pointers and double digit dunks were a highlight of the performance. Tres Buzan, Jacksonville coach, stated that the tournament’s goal was to achieve a high standard. We don’t care about who is playing. We just want to play at a high standard and perform to our standards. It was great to see tonight’s win and to get the ball rolling.
“We have to get back to work, we’ve got a few things to clean up. But proud of the guys tonight and hopefully we can do that Thursday.” Thursday’s semifinal will be against the winner of Wednesday’s Piedmont Anniston match.
John Broom kicked off the party with a high-flying following of Devin Barksdale’s missed 3 to start the game. Cam Johnson then buried three straight 3s at the top of the arc from different locations. Johnson finished the 2-on-1 break with an explosive dunk to cap off the first flurry. After the first quarter, the Golden Eagles led 42-23 and 22-11 respectively. At the half, they were leading 42-23. It was a complete rout, with a 24-6 third-quarter. Buzan stated that offensively, he thought we did a good job. Buzan said that although we did a poor job defensively in the first half, and didn’t really do a good job of controlling the ball and rotating the ball, the second half was a great game and that I was proud to have seen that improvement. We are trying to be proud of our defensive abilities and we have to continue improving. [ …]
