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By Fred Guarino

The Lowndes Signal

The road to Class 2A basketball championships came to an end Thursday night for the Calhoun Tigers and the Central Lady Lions.

Calhoun fell to Aliceville 47-39 and Central fell to R C. Hatch 36-19 Thursday night in Class 2A Central Regionals at Dunn-Oliver Acadome in Montgomery.

The Tigers ended the year 7-18 and 2-4 and were runner-up in Class 2A Area 6. And the Lady Lions were crowned champions of Class 2A Area 6 this season.

For Calhoun Demaro Jiles scored 16 points, Le Darius Maull scored 9 points.

Tigers head basketball coach Derrick Powell said, “I will define season with one word, ‘resilience.’“ He said, “Winning is habitual, but losing is also, and we had to learn how to win again and we did. We bounced back amazingly, and now confidence and high morale is definitely now evident on my basketball team.”

Powell said, “I’m sad this season is done, and if I could make one change it would be to play all players in that game. As a first-year coach ending this season making it to the regionals will hopefully help future players trust in my process and believe we will win a 2A state championship.”

Central Lady Lions head basketball coach Terry Thomas said, “The big stage at the Central Regional was a little too much for my inexperience team.”

However, Thomas said, “Ii am very confident that with summer play dates and off season conditioning that we will be a team to be respected in 2017-18 season.”

He said, “Can’t tell you how proud I am to see a team go from three wins to 14.  We spent entire first two months just getting out of losing mentality.  We hit all of our goals…10 plus wins, regular season area champs,  area tournament champs, won a subregional game, advanced to (central) regional. “

Thomas said, “Although I am not satisfied, I feel good about a team that starts three freshmen, one sophomore and one senior. “

And according to Thomas, the “future is bright. “