VINEMONT – Meek could not have asked for a better start on their first play day at Vinemont. They beat the Eagles, 57-31, in the first game, and won, 41-35, in their next game against Tarrant. Vinemont was on the other side of the score as they dropped the first game of the day to the Tigers, and fell in the last game against Tarrant, 55-52.
The Tigers and the Eagles squared off in the first game, and Jacob Woodard got Meek on the board as he forced an Eagle turnover and took it the other way and hit a layup. John Abercrombie hit a layup, and then got another layup to go in after getting the offensive rebound, one of seven rebounds he gathered up in the first half. Vinemont got back-to-back layups by Jack Hill and Hudson Woods to put them on the board. Turnovers and rebounds killed the Eagles in the first half, as Abercrombie and Dennis Nalley pounded the glass for the Tigers, especially on the offensive side. A Luke Sherer layup pushed the Meek lead to 21-4, but Vinemont finished the first half strong, as they hit three threes as part of an 11-4 run to close the gap to 27-15 at the half.
After a Woodard layup widened their lead to 33-18, Kateh Johnson nailed back-to-back threes and Trey Boland hit a layup to cut the deficit to just seven at 33-26, but Meek turned up the pressure after that, allowing just four Eagle points, outscoring Vinemont by 20 the rest of the game to go on to win, 57-31.
Woodard finished with 24 points and six steals for the Tigers. Hayden Twilley had 10. Sherer and Abercrombie each finished with eight, and Nalley had seven.
Johnson nailed five threes to finish with 15 in the game for the Eagles. Hill had six. Boland finished with five, Conner Handley had three, and Hudson Woods ended up with two.
In game two, Meek had a tough go early on against Tarrant, falling behind 7-4 before Woodard nailed a three to tie the game at seven. The game was tied at 12 after a Rattler free throw, and Woodard hit another three from the top of the key to put Meek in the lead at 15-12 with 3:47 remaining in the first half. Each team went back and forth to end the first half, and layups by Twilley and Sherer gave Meek a 19-16 lead when halftime hit.
The Tigers started the second half on an 11-2 run behind balanced scoring by Abercrombie, Sherer, Chris Clark and Twilley to push the lead to double digits for the first time in the game at 30-18. But they could not put the Rattlers away as a big run by Tarrant cut the Meek lead to 37-33 after a layup. Woodard and Abercrombie helped seal the six-point win for the Tigers on a layup and a pair of free throws, respectively.
Woodard finished with 14 points for Meek. Abercrombie ended up with 10 points. Sherer, Clark and Twilley each had five, and Nalley had two. Meek finished with a 15-14 record last season. They fell in the sub-regionals to South Lamar, and they look to rebound from that this season with most of their roster coming back. Woodard, Abercrombie, Sherer, Nalley, Dillion Baker, Lane Phillips and Ian Sargent will all be seniors this upcoming season. They will lose just two seniors from last season, and the rest of this year's roster will be juniors as they look to make this season one to remember.
The final game pitted Tarrant against Vinemont. The Rattlers wasted no time, jumping on the Eagles early and capitalizing on forced turnovers to grab a 9-0 lead. Vinemont finally got on the scoreboard on a Boland three after almost four minutes of not scoring. The rebounding issues continued for Vinemont as Tarrant got a lot of second chances on them. Each team went back and forth scoring for most of the first half. Vinemont had seven different players score in the first half and went to the break trailing 32-24.
The back and forth action continued into the second half, as each team looked for that game-changing play. With the score 46-39 in favor of the Rattlers, a Tarrant player got a technical foul for slamming the ball down, and Johnson split the free throws, then Boland hit a big three from the right wing to cut the deficit to just three. After a Tarrant free throw, Hill cut the deficit to just two on a layup, then Johnson drilled a three to give the Eagles their first lead of the day, 48-47, with 3:34 remaining in the game, and Boland hit a layup to make it a 50-47 score. But they did not hold the lead for very long as turnovers and rebounding issues hurt them.
Tarrant went on an 8-0 run to get the lead right back at 55-50. Johnson got fouled while attempting a three, and he hit 2-of-3 to make it a 55-52 ballgame. But Vinemont could not get the ball back as the Rattlers dribbled out the rest of the clock.
Boland led Vinemont with 13 points. Hill ended up with 10. Handley finished with nine. Johnson finished with eight. Adam Dunn and Woods each had four. Clay Shipp and Carl Price each ended up with two.
"I thought we played okay for the most part in our first two games," Vinemont coach Roy Johnson said. "Offensively, we were taking some good shots even though some of them were not going in. We need to do a better job of boxing out and getting rebounds. We are very small, but we need to get our butts down there and box out. We only have one player back from last season. We are very young, but we will continue to work hard and improve."
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