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By Fred Guarino

The Lowndes Signal

Calhoun will play Goshen at home in Letohatchee, Friday, Feb. 9 at 7 p.m. for the boys 2A Area 6 Basketball Championship.

The Central boys fell to Goshen at Calhoun in the area tournament Wednesday, Feb. 7 in overtime 75-70, and Calhoun overcame a flat start on Feb. 7 to eliminate Luverne 59-35.

In the Central/Goshen game, which ended Central’s boys basketball season, Goshen’s Michael Hollis accounted for 33 points while the Lions were led by Kentravious Dudley with 16 points.

In the Calhoun/Luverne game, which eliminated Luverne from the boys area tournament, Jerdarrian Davison led the home Tigers with 18 points while Messiah (Billy) Burnett scored 11 for Luverne.

Central head basketball coach Brian Coleman said the game with Goshen was great for the crowd. “But,” he said, “for me it wasn’t so great. It shouldn’t have been overtime because when you’re up by 15 at half…” But Coleman said the Lions got into foul trouble and he could have his team play man-to-man. In fact, he said, three of his players fouled out of the game. He said Central couldn’t compete at that point because Goshen had quick guards. He said, “This has been one of my most trying seasons since I started coaching. But overall, we did get some good things accomplished. Coleman said, “I wish we were still playing. It’s been a while since I hadn’t (had a team that) played in the playoffs.”

Calhoun head basketball coach Ervin Starr said his team came out “flat” tied at 11 -11 in the first quarter and trailing 19-20 at the half. He said that must have had something to do with Luverne.

But Starr said, “Luckily we went in at the half and made some adjustments, kind of switched what we were doing on defense in the full court and were able to get turnovers.” He said once the defense stepped up, so did the offense.

Starr said Spencer Johnson who moved up from junior varsity “lit the fire” for Calhoun on defense. He said Friday’s game will be the rubber game between Calhoun and Goshen.

Luverne head basketball coach Richard Dorsey said his team had a good season, playing with a lot of inexperienced players… ninth and 10th graders who had never played. He said, “They just don’t know how to win right now… hopefully in the off season we can work on a lot of that.”

He said Wednesday night’s game with Calhoun was well fought, “Their (Calhoun’s) experience and probably team leadership helped them and put them over the top.”

Dorsey said, however, he thought Satyler Wilson, a sophomore, played pretty well for him. He said, “That’s where it starts with the ball being in his hands a lot. We’ll get there eventually. We’ve been there before, we’ll get back.”