High school basketball: First-year Seckinger too much for Cherokee Bluff in Region 8-4A tournament

Feb. 13—A lot of high school basketball programs facing a similar situation would relish what Cherokee Bluff's boys faced Monday — going against a first-year program needing one win to secure a state tournament berth on the line — during their Region 8-4A tournament quarterfinal.

However, the Bears already knew from their earlier meeting with Seckinger that their Buford-based opponent was no ordinary first-year program.

And the visiting Jaguars demonstrated that point once again, getting balanced scoring and holding off multiple Cherokee Bluff attempts at a rally to earn their program's first state tournament bid with a 65-54 win Monday at Cherokee Bluff.

Carter Watkins led Seckinger (18-8) with 15 points 10 rebounds and three assists, but had plenty of help, with three other players in double figures and a fourth nearly joining them.

That total team effort not only put the Jaguars, who won an earlier meeting with Cherokee Bluff in December, into the state tournament, it also moved them into the region semifinals, where they will take on No. 4 Madison County, a 78-54 winner over North Hall earlier Monday.

They also reinforced the respect of Cherokee Bluff coach Josh Travis and his Bears (17-9), who had a season that saw them post the program's second-best win total and win their first subregion championship come to an end.

"I hope we proved that they're good," Travis said. "There might be things we could've done different, (but) I don't know what they are. ... We tried everything we could. I mean, they shut us down. Their zone is something else. They're a good team. They made the plays they had to make, and had a bunch of different guys who did it.

"I think our team deserves to still be playing based on what they did all year. We didn't win (Monday) night, so we don't deserve to, but there's definitely a foundation. ... There should be something we can build on. It would've been nice to have a little more validation."

Seckinger got things done in a lot of different ways throughout Monday's game.

Early on, it was 3-point shooting, with Watkins, Dominic Dupigny, Akivo Walker and I.V. Redmond each knocking down a shot from behind the arc to help the Jaguars build a 14-9 lead with 3:52 left in the first quarter.

Cherokee Bluff fought back behind a pair of baskets from Boston Kersh to pull to within 14-13 at the 2:28 mark.

But Seckinger ended the quarter on a 6-0 run, with a layup and a pair of free throws from Walker, plus a transition bucket from Braxton Miller to build the lead back to 20-13 by the end of the opening frame.

Things then went from bad to worse for the Bears when Kersh and senior Carlos Marlow both went to the bench with foul trouble by the early minutes of the second quarter.

And the Jaguars pounced on the opening with a 12-3 run over the first 3:14 of the second quarter to build the lead to 32-16 following a Watkins stickback with 4:46 left in the first half.

However, Cherokee Bluff slowly began to chip away behind contributions from its bench.

Freshman Cooper Glover scored six of his eight points of the evening, while junior Bryce Horton added a 3-pointer and another freshman, Andy Quirarte chipped in a bucket to key an 11-2 run over the final 4:33 of the half to cut the deficit to 34-27 by intermission.

The Bears then made five consecutive stops to start the second half to give themselves a chance to cut into the lead further.

However, they could only get as close as 36-30 after Marlow returned with a three-point play to counter a Watkins basket with 4:30 left in the third quarter.

Watkins answered by knocking down another 3-pointer from the top of the key on the next trip down, and added another basket in transition and assisted on Tony Wells' 3-pointer to spark an 8-0 run that pushed the Seckinger lead back to double digits at 44-30 with 3:08 left in the quarter.

Cherokee Bluff kept trying to fight back into the fourth quarter, using a 12-2 run keyed by six points and an assist by Marlow to cut what was once a 17-point lead down to just 58-51 after Glover hit 1 of 2 free throws with 2:02 remaining.

But the Bears would get no closer, as Watkins fed Walker for a layup with 1:52 left, and the Jaguars were able to put the game away at the line.

Dupigny (12 points, 8 rebounds, 3 assists, 4 steals), Redmond (11 points) and Miller (10 points, 4 rebounds, 4 steals) joined Watkins on double-figure scoring, while Walker nearly joined them, finishing with nine points and seven boards.

Marlow, meanwhile, finished his Cherokee Bluff career with 15 points, including hitting 11 of 12 free throws, and adding four rebounds and four assists, before fouling out.

Kersh also reached double figures with 11 points despite missing most of the second half in foul trouble, Glover added eight rebounds to go with his points and Tanaka Mukono pulled down seven boards.

MADISON COUNTY BOYS 78, NORTH HALL 54: The fourth-ranked Red Raiders (24-2) scored the game's first 10 points and never looked back in advancing to Thursday's 5:30 p.m. semifinal.

Grant Smith scored all 21 of his points in the first half and also finished with six rebounds, four assists and four steals, while Madison County also got 14 points, 12 rebounds and two blocks from Chris Rhodes and 15 points and four assists from Mason Smith.

"If you don't make them uncomfortable and you let them pick you apart, you're in for a dogfight," North Hall coach Miles Kendall said. "They shot better than us, as well, and their size has a lot to do with it."

Cole Hulsey scored 15 points and pulled down seven rebounds to lead the Trojans (14-13), while Casen Payne contributed nine points.