Valwood boys stay perfect, girls rally to beat Fullington

Dec. 12—HAHIRA — James Clarkson and Bowen Patrick propelled Valwood to a 54-25 rout of Fullington Academy in the team's home opener Friday night.

The Valiants used their aggressive pressure defense to fuel their offense as they opened the game with 16 unanswered points and led 24-3 after the first quarter. Though the Valwood offense slowed down considerably in the second quarter, the slippage was minimal as the Valiants pushed their lead to 32-10 by halftime.

"The moment I set foot in the gym here, we were gonna play defense. That was first and foremost — we're gonna go 32 minutes as hard as we can," Valiants first-year head coach Joel Stites said. "If we work as hard as we can, we talk about just letting the score settle itself. That's the mindset. If you're gonna rebuild a brand and make your own brand and a culture, I think it needs to be defense first. You can win a lot of games and not play very good on offense, but if you play great on defense, you can still win those games."

Playing with a sizable cushion, the Valiants allowed back-to-back hoops to start the third quarter — drawing the ire of Stites, who wasn't pleased with his team's lapse in intensity, looseness with the ball and lackluster defense out of the half that saw the lead nibbled from 22 to 18.

The Valiants quickly righted themselves as a pull-up jumper and a nifty spin move and finish by Clarkson keyed 14-2 run that allowed the Valiants to go ahead by 30 heading into the fourth. Despite emptying his bench in the final period, Stites saw his Valiants keep the proverbial foot on the gas — opening the fourth on an 8-0 run capped by a nice feed from Jack Morris to Wren Woodall to put the Valiants ahead 54-16 with 2:20 remaining.

"I know I played every single guy on our team and that's tough. That's really tough," Stites said. "It's tough for a coach, it's tough for the players, it's tough for everyone. We just talked about just keeping our intensity up, being a little bit smarter. I had four freshman on the court multiple times tonight. I've only got one senior. We joke and say we're just really young and really raw, but it's true. Every night we play, it's a night for us to grow up. I gave them aa hard time at halftime. I just talked about intensity and being smart, but I think all in all, the third quarter started slow but that's why I left them in. I left them in because I wanted them to get a little bit of rhythm and then they reeled off 14 in about a minute and a half. I think my first five outscored them by 32 points, so that's not bad."

Clarkson scored nine of his team-best 15 points in the first quarter, while Patrick poured in 10 of his 14 points in the third quarter to lead the Valiants to victory.

Coming off of Friday's win, the Valiants hosted the Citizens Christian Patriots out of Douglas Saturday evening.

In a tough competitive matchup, the Valiants pulled out a 68-57 win to move to 5-0 on the season.

VALWOOD GIRLS 39,

FULLINGTON 37

The Valwood Lady Valiants rallied from a 13-point first-quarter deficit to stun Fullington 39-37 Friday.

Friday's win may go down as one of the best for the girls basketball program in several seasons.

Down by seven at halftime, the Lady Valiants erupted for 20 points in the third quarter to take a 35-31 lead heading to the fourth quarter. In the fourth, the Lady Valiants were shaky but relied on their defense and the clock on their side to hold on for the victory.

"Our girls played well tonight," Valwood girls basketball coach Mike Patrick said. "Fullington Academy was well-coached and they came out shooting lights out. If you walked in the gym the first quarter, you never would've thought we would get back into it but finally, the shots quit going and we finally crept back into and crept back into it and put a little pressure on them and the Lord was with us and we won the game. I'm really proud of our girls."

Fullington opened the game on fire, knocking down three 3-pointers in the first quarter to lead 18-5 after one quarter.

In past seasons, the team may have folded but not Friday night. Valwood responded with a 10-4 second quarter to cut the deficit to 22-15 by halftime.

"We got back in it at the half. It was 12 or 13, whatever it was," Patrick said. "Probably midway second quarter, we cut it to seven at half. I told them, if you keep working and keep that pressure on, we can fight back into it. Then we finally did and we hung on at the end. I think we were up four at one time, then they made some shots and missed some shots but I was proud of them. Our regular girls played hard. I haven't seen the book but Madison Shapiro probably had about 10 points tonight, Charis Eager probably had some points. Caylee Collins got in some foul trouble but she had a big third quarter for us before she fouled out. She's definitely an athlete on the floor. I thought Lacy Ann McLeod hustled. She's coming off a knee injury and she really got after it. Bella (Shaw), too. We played three eighth-graders who got some big minutes tonight. Bryce Carter, Carolyn Griner and Anna Harvey Shaw — they're eighth-graders getting to play in a varsity game and just giving us a minute here or there. (Junior) Lucy Spikes, this was only her second game. She transferred in this year and hadn't played basketball in a while. She's still learning what we're doing. I was proud of all the girls who played tonight. Assistant coach Brian Breland did a good job."

Senior Charis Eager led Valwood with 14 points. Caylee Collins added 12 points — 10 of which came in the third quarter. Senior Madison Shapiro finished with eight points in the win.

For Fullington, Whitney McLeod scored 12 points and Jaye Beth Womble added eight points in the loss.

With the win, the Lady Valiants improved to 2-3 on the season — bringing them one win away from equally their win total all of last season (3-14). From top to bottom, the roster looks better equipped to compete not only from a physical and athletic standpoint, but with their skills and overall mentality as well.

"Sure, sure. We've got some athletic girls on the floor," Patrick agreed. "We've got some soccer players that are probably going to play at the college level. We've got a couple girls that are all-state, all-region volleyball players that are used to winning. it's just the basketball experience we don't have. You can see that we can jump and physically, we're a good-looking, physical team but the basketball skills is an everyday experience. We're doing some of the same drills with our high school girls that we do with our fifth and sixth grade girls, but they're catching up. They play hard. They're great kids. No bad attitudes. They pull for each other. You couldn't ask for any more as a coach."

UP NEXT

The Valwood boys return to action on the road at Sherwood Dec. 16 at 6:30 p.m., and will close out 2022 with a home game against Sherwood Dec. 20.

The Valwood girls are done for the rest of 2022, but return to action at home against Echols County Jan. 5 at 6 p.m.

Shane Thomas is the sports editor at the Valdosta Daily Times.