Jacksonville, AL – In the battle of two teams who have won the previous three state titles in Class 4A championships at the state level Anniston’s long-running defensive threshold stands up to a tough test in Jacksonville.
Thursday’s scoreboard
BOYS
Anniston 46, Jacksonville 44
Winterboro the 58th, Faith Christian 54
Coosa Christian 38, Jax Christian 53
Cleburne County 63, Cherokee County 53
Piedmont 64, Southeastern 54
Talladega 72, Central-Clay 71
Saks 69 Donoho 65, 2OT
Champions Christmas Classic
Alexandria 64, Moody 52
Springville 69, Glencoe 66
GIRLS
Jacksonville 70, Saks 32
Jax Christian 49, Coosa Christian 44
Piedmont 42, Cedar Bluff 36
Sardis 64 White Plains 47
By Joe Medley
Anniston’s players are twelve games into their campaign and perhaps their most impressive team stats stand following one of their toughest tests.
The Bulldogs aren’t yet giving up over 48 or more points one game.
Anniston was able to hold Jacksonville by limiting them to shooting 34 percent, which included 5-for-18 from behind the 3-point line. Anniston defeated an Golden Eagles’ last-gasp possession to take the game 46-44 on Thursday.
A 2021 class 4A state champion won this championship from the team that took the class 4A title in 2022 and 2023.
“It’s an important victory for us, especially given how well they’ve been playing,” Anniston coach Torry Brown stated. “They’ve been pretty consistent considering that they’ve been beating us in the past couple of times.
“It was great to come here and score a victory.”
The fifth-ranked Anniston has improved to 9-3 while fourth-ranked Jacksonville dropped to 8-4.
Delroy Francis led the Bulldogs with 15 points, which included two 3-pointers. Devin Coleman hit two 3-pointers for 10 points.
Jacksonville had three 3-pointers as well as sixteen points scored by Aaron Nixon and 12 points (one three) from Jaquan Ervin. However, Anniston concentrated the defense of the Jacksonville’s Devin Barksdale. The Bulldogs played a 1-2-2 formation that defended him to the 3-point line and blocked the lane once the player stepped into.
Following the 26-point rout at Alexandria, Barksdale scored five points in the game against Anniston. After scoring six 3-pointers against Alexandria the team, he smashed a fourth-quarter three to beat Anniston.
That trio cut Anniston’s lead by 45-43 with 1:51 left before the final quarter. Damonte Sinclair made it to the line for free throws at 1:04 after stealing and a drive.
Sinclair made one of his free-throws that brought Jacksonville to within 45-44.
Jacksonville was required be fouled three times in order to be able to get Anniston to the bonus, and then Jayden Lewis made the first of his two free shots to make it 46-44, with just 29 seconds left.
Jacksonville did not dribble to its offensive side and then called timeout after 22 seconds. Following the Golden Eagles’ set produced little or no success the sophomore-year Jacksonville head coach Tres Buzan called timeouts at 7.7 seconds.
“We created something in an attempt to create an impression,” Buzan said. “We believed we could have Aaron open there or perhaps Devin and Jaquan. We didn’t get a fantastic glimpse of them, however we did get a decent look at”the putback.”
Nixon missed a three-point contest at the corner of right and Jacksonville tried three putbacks.
Brown showed a great deal of flexibility in his defense the final play.
“They were able to do it beneath and we are normally an under-zone team and I posed the children, “What do you think you’d like to do?” Brown said. “Do you want to protect the team, or would you like to manage our zone.
“They declared that they wanted to protect them, we simply switched to red and tried to switch things.”
It was a dramatic conclusion for a match that Anniston was a dominant force for about an hour and an hour and a half. The Bulldogs were able to take an advantage of 22-5 before Jacksonville came just 24-16 at the half.
Jacksonville reduced the lead until Ervin’s drive provided Jacksonville an advantage of 37-36 at 7:21 into the 4th quarter. The lead was Jacksonville’s first since 2-0, thanks to the back of a Barksdale layup.
Anniston quickly took back the lead and held for the thrilling finish. The victory was achieved two weeks before Anniston’s Calhoun County Tournament seeding meeting.
“This is a major win following Alexandria,” Francis said. “We beat them, and also beat Jacksonville and we could become the top overall seed for the County.”
