Over the past three days the Boiling Springs basketball teams competed in holiday basketball tournaments across Spartanburg County with both teams coming away with strong showings against strong opponents.
The boys team competed in the Impact Sports Invitational at Spartanburg Christian Academy where they finished the tournament with a 2-1 record after dropping the first game of the tournament. "Coming in to the first game I knew we were going to be rusty as it was our first action against another team," said Bulldogs head coach Curtis Nash. "We were timid in the first game on defense but I challenged the guys to pick up the intensity and let it transfer for us into some points on offense. We got a good a win out of it against Laurens and then another one today against SCA as our focus was to just get better defensively." On Monday the team had a sluggish first half that saw them trailing 50-21 but in the second half kept pace with a very talented Mauldin team before eventually falling 87-56 to the Mavericks. Bulldogs junior point guard Tre Locklear finished the game with 26 points which started a strong tournament for the guard which ended up with an All-Tournament selection. "Tre is a great player with amazing vision," said Nash. "He's a guy that can put the tempo at the pace we want to go who's quick in transition with a good shot. He's only a junior for us but he's a natural born leader which we think will make him one of our go-to guys this year." After a tough loss on Monday the Bulldogs got out to a fast start on Tuesday jumping out to a 17-5 first quarter lead that they kept up in the second quarter taking a 29-18 lead into halftime. Boiling Springs kept up the pace in the second half as they eventually won the game 73-31 as Locklear once again led the Bulldogs in scoring with 16 points. In the third game Boiling Springs faced the host school Spartanburg Christian Academy in a game that saw them trailing 28-20 at halftime before eventually coming away with a 56-52 victory. With the Warriors running a zone they forced the Bulldogs guards to make shots which they done well as guard Austin Faile hit four three pointers for twelve points in the first quarter. "I told the guys coming into the game that if we're going to get them out of their zone, we'd have to hit shots which we done," said Nash. "Austin was hot early and I told him to just keep shooting the ball and he kept that up in the second half." Boiling Springs went on a 20-11 run in the third quarter to grab a 40-39 lead before holding off a SCA run in the fourth quarter behind clutch free throw shooting for Locklear, went 8 of 8 from free throw line in fourth quarter, to claim the victory. Faile led the way in scoring with 22 points for the Bulldogs as Locklear added another 15 points. While the Bulldogs were strong shooting, they also got good tournament performances from their big men as Julius Camp Jr and Dominique Johnson helped control the boards against bigger players in most of the games. "I told those guys we're going to have to fight against a lot of these teams especially the ones that are bigger than us," said Nash. "Julius and Dominique are two guys who aren't scared to fight and they done a great job establishing themselves on the blocks all throughout the tournament. The heart they have makes up for the lack of the size in games like we had this week." The Boiling Springs girls team also competed in a tournament over the past week as they battled in the Lady Cavalier Invitational at Dorman on Monday and Tuesday. After a tough loss to Dorman on Monday to start the tournament, the Bulldogs battled back on Tuesday to defeat a very strong Blacksburg team for a third-place finish in the tournament. Ansley King was named the All-Tournament player for the Bulldogs while Sarah Ezell had a strong game for the Bulldogs on Tuesday against Blacksburg as she scored 23 points to help secure the victory. Both teams will next compete on Monday in road games at Chapman. Comments are closed.
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