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By Fred Guarino

The Lowndes Signal

The 2018-19 basketball season finally came to a close for the Calhoun Tigers in the AHSAA Class 2A State Semi-Finals at the Birmingham-Jefferson Convention Complex in Birmingham on Monday, Feb. 25 at the hands of Sacred Heart Catholic 75-65.

The last time a Calhoun team made it that far was in 2003.

The Tigers end the season with a record of 27-8, 2A Regular Season Area 6 Champs, Area 6 Tournament Champs and Southwest Regional Champs.

Sacred Heart will go on to face Central Coosa for the 2A State Championship on Friday, March 1 at 10:45 a.m. at the BJCC.

In Monday’s game, Calhoun’s Dremaricus Hayes scored 18 points, grabbed seven rebounds and had two steals. Jerdarrian (J.D.) Davison scored 17 points and had 10 rebounds. And JaMichael Boone scored eight points and had eight rebounds.

Calhoun head basketball coach Ervin Starr blamed himself for not managing his team better or making better use of timeouts to stop Sacred Heart’s momentum.

“I did not have our team ready for the most important game of their young lives,” Starr said.

He said the Tigers gave up too many drives to the basket. And while his Tigers out rebounded Sacred Heart 39-34, Calhoun suffered at the charity stripe, hitting just four of 13 free throws while Sacred Heart went 13-17.

“This was a championship team,” Starr said of his Tigers, “and I didn’t get the job done.”

He said, “I asked these young men to trust me. They did just that and bought into what I asked them to do each day. I am hard to play for and demand a lot.”

But, he said. “I am so proud of the job these young student athletes did this year. I just wish I would have done my job better and helped them reach their goal of winning a state championship.”