County Tournament
- Updated: January 17, 2025
Saks boys, Jacksonville Christian boys, Faith Christian girls, Ohatchee girls advance. Games moved to Saturday amid fears of winter weather on Tuesday,
74th Calhoun County Tournament pairings
BOYS’ PAIRINGS
FRIDAY, Jan. 17
No. 12 Saks 52, No. 13 Faith Christian 48
No. 11 Jacksonville Christian 73, No. 14 Wellborn 60
SATURDAY, Jan. 18
No. 6 Weaver vs. JCA, 6:30 p.m.
No. 5 Jacksonville vs. Saks, 9:30 p.m.
MONDAY, Jan. 20
No. 7 White Plains vs. No. 10 Pleasant Valley, 10:30 a.m.
No. 8 Ohatchee vs. No. 9 Donoho, 1:30 p.m.
No. 3 Anniston vs. Weaver/Wellborn/JCA, 4:30 p.m.
No. 4 Piedmont vs. Jacksonville/Faith/Saks, 7:30 p.m.
SATURDAY, Jan. 25
No. 2 Alexandria vs. White Plains/PV, 5:30 p.m.
No. 1 Oxford vs. Ohatchee/Donoho, 8:30 p.m.
MONDAY, Jan. 27
Semifinals, 5:30 p.m. & 8:30 p.m.
TUESDAY, Jan. 28
Championship, 8 p.m.
SAKS 52, FAITH CHRISTIAN 48: Delandas Allen’s putback of Lajuan Curry’s missed free throw put Saks up 49-46 with 1:01 to play, and Christian Hall’s steal and layup made it 51-46 at 34.5 seconds.
The 12th seeded Wildcats (5-8) held on and will play No. 5 Jacksonville on Saturday at 9:30 p.m.
Allen’s putback came after Curry hit the first of two free throws to give Saks a 47-46 lead.
“The game being close like that, I’ve just got to give it my all,” said Allen, who scored four points on the night. “That’s all I can do, is give it my all, so me and my teammates can succeed at the end of the day.”
Christian Hall paced Saks with 18 points, and Tyeshawn Toney added 15,
Parker Robertson and Colton Reese led Faith with 12 points apiece, and Toby Ricard added nine.
Saks got its fifth win in eight games.
“We’ve hit right at 90 to 100 threes in our last nine games,” Saks coach Wes Ginn said. “We’re starting to play good ball.
“We did this last year. We started out slow, because a lot of our kids play multiple sports. They play two, three, even four spots. We’re starting to jell a little bit and getting better.”
JACKSONVILLE CHRISTIAN 73, WELLBORN 60: Up 36-35 at halftime, No. 11 JCA (13-4) opened the third quarter with a 23-2 run to take control.
The Thunder earned a shot at No. 6 Weaver on Saturday at 6:30 p.m.
Jesse Gannaway led JCA with 25 points, and Bryson Dowdey added 21. Noah Lee added 17 points and 21 rebounds.
Gannaway and Dowdey each had eight points, including two 3-pointers apiece, in JCA’s third quarter run.
JCA coach Tommy Miller’s halftime message actualized in the third quarter.
“It was, just quit playing me ball and start playing as a team,” Gannaway said. “The points were spread out. No one really led in scoring.
“We just worked as a team like we usually do and go get the job done.”
The idea was to free up Gannaway, Miller said.
“I felt like we had gotten too one-dimensional,” Miller said. “We were throwing the ball in and giving it right back to Jesse, and they were guarding Jesse full court and, at times, with two, and they’d drop a third one on him, if necessary. You could see he was struggling to even get any kind of decent shot, and he started forcing it some.
‘At halftime, I made them put the ball back in Bryson’s hands to get it down the floor in order to get Jesse open in position to shoot, which was getting some other people open.”
Lee finished with six assists. Dowdey and Gannaway had five apiece.
Ollie Boot led Wellborn with 21 points. Raymond Williams added 12 and Christian Williams nine.
GIRLS’ PAIRINGS
FRIDAY, Jan. 17
No. 6 Ohatchee 39, No. 11 Pleasant Valley 29
No. 12 Faith Christian 39, No. 13 Wellborn 33
SATURDAY, Jan. 18
No. 5 Alexandria vs. Faith, 8 p.m.
MONDAY, Jan. 19
No. 7 Piedmont vs. No. 10 Jacksonville Christian, 9 a.m.
No. 8 White Plains vs. No. 9 Weaver, noon
No. 3 Anniston vs. Ohatchee, 3 p.m.
No. 4 Saks vs. Alexandria/Wellborn/Faith, 6 p.m.
SATURDAY, Jan. 25
No. 2 Jacksonville vs. Piedmont/JCA, 4 p.m.
No. 1 Oxford vs. White Plains/Weaver, 7 p.m.
MONDAY, Jan. 27
Semifinals, 4 & 7 p.m.
TUESDAY, Jan. 28
Championship, 6 p.m.
OHATCHEE 39, PLEASANT VALLEY 29: Emily Riddle solved Pleasant Valley in Friday’s first-round Calhoun County Tournament action.
The Ohatchee junior forward scored three consecutive buckets to open the fourth quarter and reclaim the lead for the sixth-seeded Indians (12-7), and they advanced to Monday’s 3 p.m. game against No. 3 seed Anniston.
Riddle started a 9-0 Ohatchee run after a Lily Robinson 3-pointer gave Pleasant Valley its only lead, 27-26, at the end of the third quarter. Riddle scored seven of the nine points in the run and finished tied with Payten Walker with a team-high 13 points.
“It was a really close game, and coach just told us that we need to play our game,” Riddle said. “I think we weren’t playing our game at first, but we finally got back on our game.”
Pleasant Valley crept back into the game after trailing 16-9 in the second quarter and trailed 21-18 at halftime.
Laney Robinson led Pleasant Valley with nine points.
“Pleasant Valley did a really good job against us,” Ohatchee coach Aaron Jackson said. “We found a way to win late.
“We had another game where we kept our composure and played pretty good when it mattered.”
FAITH CHRISTIAN 39, WELLBORN 33: Down 31-20 going into the fourth quarter, No. 13 Wellborn rallied to within 32-30 on a Hannah Grubbs bucket with 2:15 to play.
No. 12 Faith’s Anna Kate Robertson hit all four of her free throws in the final 36.3 seconds to help the Lions keep the Panthers at bay.
Robertson, a senior, finished with as team-high 17 points as Faith improved to 9-11 headed into Saturday’s 8 p.m. game with No. 5 Alexandria.
“We let it get a little too close at the end,” Robertson said. “We just had to stop fouling at the end and slow it down.”
Emma Shaw added nine points, and Serenity Pate scored seven.
Destiny Benefield led Wellborn with 12 points. Grubbs finished with nine and Braelyn Bean eight.
“Wellborn played really hard, but we were able to sustain,” Faith coach LaRay Williams said. “We knew they were going to come out aggressive in the second half, so we just kind of weathered the storm.
“We did that leaning on our three seniors that we have.”
Notes
–Ohatchee’s Payten Walker scores the first basket of the tournament on a runout,
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