The Region 3A-DII tournament is scheduled for Feb. 16-20 at Metter and based on results to date the boys’ side is set to be a wild and exciting week.
At one point it was looking as if Screven County was a clear-cut favorite but that is no longer the case as several teams, including Bryan County, are currently playing excellent basketball.
The Redskins (8-9, 7-4) picked up their fifth straight win last Friday night in convincing fashion as they pulled away down the stretch to knock off Portal, 56-45. This came on the heels of an impressive 61-44 win at McIntosh County Academy led by sophomore Jordan Carlos’ 19 points.
Bryan County was at Metter on Tuesday night and the Tigers are also on a five-game tear that included wins over Savannah and Screven. The Redskins will be at home on Friday against Savannah and then will be at Screven next Tuesday which will be the first of three straight region games on the road.
Prior to tip off against the Panthers Coach Jason Napier said all he wanted for his team to do was “play a clean game” because Portal did that so well, keeping its mistakes to a minimum.
The Redskins complied, especially in the fourth quarter when they ramped it up on defense to limit the Panthers to only four points and turned a close game into a double-digit win.
Napier said there’s no secret behind the current run. It’s simply a matter of his team maturing and starting to believe and understanding the coaching staff’s expectations.
“We keep harping on what I like to call clean, simple basketball—some people call it fundamental basketball, I call it clean—and that means playing on two feet, play with two hands.
“Simple wins a lot of games,” Napier said. “When you try to do finger rolls, play above the rim, trying to be extra you miss easy shots.
“Trying to make the extra really difficult, the no-look pass or trying to cut between two defenders. If that's not your skill set you don’t try to do that stuff. It may work once every 10 times but the other nine hurts us. They’re buying into that.”
Portal has virtually owned the Redskins in basketball over the years. Bryan County swept the Panthers for the first time ever last year but lost earlier in the season, 58-50, in a game in which Napier said his team did not play particularly well.
Bryan County led 12-11 after the first quarter and appeared to take control of the game when it opened the second quarter on a 9-1 run for a 21-12 bulge. It could not sustain that momentum as Portal then reeled off nine straight points to forge a 21-21 tie.
It was a dogfight from that point on with the Panthers up by one, 26-25, at the half and they extended the lead to 43-37 following a steal and layup by LJ Harden with slightly more than a minute remaining in the quarter.
At this point Redskins senior Darius Edwards took over the game.
Edwards, who had 17 points, proceeded to score the Redskins’ next eight points including a 3-point bomb with 1.2 seconds on the clock. He was also fouled and although he missed the free throw, he had given his team the lead at 43-41, its first since late in the second quarter.
It was all Bryan County in the fourth quarter. Portal scored with 7:19 to play to tie it for a last time at 43-43. Edwards responded with a drive down the lane 14 seconds later and Portal then went the next four minutes without scoring.
Carlos continued his strong play of late as he added 13 points while Gerbravion Collins and Cayden Rawls had nine each and Aaden Frederick added eight.
The win at MCA was highlighted by Carlos’s career high output but Rawls had 15 and Edwards, who scored 29 against Jenkins County, added 10. All of Carlos’s points came in the second half, 12 in the fourth quarter.
