Jacksonville, AL – After “a really long week” of fighting seasonal illness Jacksonville takes advantage of the 3-points of Nixon, Barksdale to victory over Piedmont. Golden Eagles’ girls roll and also.
Scoreboard for Friday
BOYS
Jacksonville 63, Piedmont 38
Ashville 76, Weaver 46
Pleasant Valley 50, Ohatchee 48
Alexandria 70, Saks 39
Cleburne County 58, Wellborn 24
Mattie T. Blount 84, White Plains 46
Central-Phenix City, 67, Oxford 48
Cedar Bluff 71, Jax Christian 45
Trion (Ga.) 51, Spring Garden 45
Handley 59, Winterboro 41
Hokes Bluff 55 Gaston 48
Glencoe Glencoe 74 Westbrook Christian 57
GIRLS
Jacksonville 41, Piedmont 21
Alexandria 49, Saks 39
Handley 58, Winterboro 40
Glencoe 46. Westbrook Christian 29
By Joe Medley
JACKSONVILLE High school basketball in the area teams are in the early phase of their season but the season’s illnesses are starting off with the best performance of all.
Jacksonville’s plight with the crud continued on Friday when two players were unable to play in their chance to play in the Golden Eagles’ 63-38 victory against the visiting Piedmont.
It’s “going about” Piedmont, too, first-year coach Matt Glover said. Dylan Oliver missed action last week.
Nearby Pleasant Valley’s boys featured five healthy varsity players in their 50-48 win against Ohatchee on Friday. Raiders Coach Brad Hood has had to make junior-varsity players more prominent. Flu has restricted Pleasant Valley’s girls to just two games.
White Plains’ boys had seven varsity players on the field in their win on Tuesday over Saks and five in their defeat against Alexandria the following day.
Jacksonville (6-2) had to wait for the 6-foot-6 center Sean Herbert on Friday, and I’King Elder was out. Guard point Devin Barksdale “was a little sick this week,” Jacksonville coach Tres Buzan told reporters. Jaquan Ervin, and Aaron Nixon have been “super sick.”
“I began the whole process on Friday last week, when the group were playing Faith,” Buzan said. “I was sick like an animal. This week, the whole team has been suffering from an illness spell and it’s been a long and tiring week.
“Guys who are only half-healthy have been playing, and those who just came from football and shouldn’t need to play for that long have been forced to play for hours.”
Jacksonville scored a 2-1 record this week, with the only loss coming against unbeaten Fort Payne on Tuesday.
“At Fort Payne, third quarter, it was evident,” Buzan said. “We were running out of gas this was the major difference. But they’re a great team and it’s a difficult location to play in. …
“We’re just band-aids. I went to PE yesterday and it appeared more like a hospital’s wing than what 5th-period athletics ought to appear like, but I’m very happy for their performance. It took a lot of courage to take on.”
Nixon was not ill-looking on Friday however his shooting wasn’t in the best way. He scored six 3-pointers en his record-setting 20 points.
Barksdale added 10 points on two threes.
Ishmael Bethel was the leading scorer in Piedmont in scoring with 12 points.
The Bulldogs (4-2) The Bulldogs (4-2) who started the season without their top scoring returner Rollie Pinto as a result of an injury related to football at the end of the first quarter, but scored their most productive stretch in the second half, getting to 21-13 after the back of a Cole Wilson 3-pointer.
Jacksonville took back the lead of 29-15 by halftime.
“I think we played a pretty decent in the in the first period,” Glover said. “Defensively I felt we played a lot better. We played at a slow pace, and we scored rebounds, but offensively we didn’t have a chance to shoot at all in the beginning of half.
“We have scored 15 points. We must score more points than we did in the initial half to win games and that’s my responsibility. The team is still learning.”
Girls
JACKSONVILLE 41 21, PIEDMONT 21:Alexis Phillips led Jacksonville (2-6) with 13 points. Four others Golden Eagles scored six apiece.
Jacksonville scored 37.9 percent in the box. They also kept Piedmont to a 0-for-12 shooting percentage from the 3-point line.
“We were very hard-working,” second-year Jacksonville coach Corey Mize said. “We’ve faced a difficult beginning to the schedule and we’ve played throughout the game and it was great to see our team finally come out. …
“It certainly gives us a bit of confidence. Piedmont isn’t an excellent squad.””
Carson Young, Jenna Duke and Morgan Studdard led Piedmont (4-4) with four points each.
“We’re both cold and hot at the moment,” first-year Piedmont coach Shane Morrow said. “We’re improving however we’re still not there yet. We hand people over and then return them to the police.
“We’ve only got to tidy up our mistakes. When we get rid of our errors then we’ll be okay.”
