‘Rough journey’

By EASportsToday.com
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Updated: February 14, 2025

Jacksonville’s boys see season of ‘ups and downs’ end in Northeast Regional, with a Wenonah wave.

**Jacksonville’s Sean Herbert goes up for two against Wenonah during Friday’s Class 5A Northeast Regional semifinals in Pete Mathews Coliseum. (Photo by Joe Medley/East Alabama Sports Today)**

By Joe Medley
East Alabama Sports Today

JACKSONVILLE — Jacksonville’s boys got off to a promising start to their Class 5A Northeast Regional semifinal on Friday, then the Wenonah wave hit.

The Dragons went from trailing to a near-50-point half to take control and cruised to a 92-56 victory in Pete Mathews Coliseum.

Wenonah (25-8) will play in the regional final Wednesday at 10:45 a.m. against the Ramsay-Hayden winner. Jacksonville finished 17-13.

“I’m proud of the way the guys fought in the second half,” Jacksonville coach Tres Buzan said. “It got away from us early.”

Led by Aaron Nixon’s 26 points, 12 from Kamouri Harmon and 10 from Sean Herbert, Jacksonville stayed in it for a quarter. The Golden Eagles led 13-11 on Ben Pridgen’s free throw at 2:09 of the first quarter.

Isaiah Jackson answered with a jumper to tie the game, and Wenonah went on to outscored Jacksonville 38-4 for the rest of the half and led 49-17 at halftime.

“It was a matter of our guys just being hungry,” Wenonah coach Cedric Lane said. “I told them there comes a point in time where you’ve just got to be a dog.

“When I saw of our guys who hadn’t been on the floor all year diving on the floor for balls, that changed the game. It’s infectious.”

Wenonah’s wave started with a 28-0 run. The Dragons led 18-13 at the end of the first quarter and opened the second with back-to-back 3-pointers from Brendon Davis and Devont’e Penn.

“I thought we handled the full-court pressure really well, but we didn’t really handle it well in the half court,” Buzan said. “It”s 11-11, 13-13 early, and then just a lot of turnovers and things that didn’t go our way, and that got us out of our defensive plan, kind of got us out of our zone.

“Hats off to them. We just didn’t have a great day today.”

Wenonah outrebounded Jacksonville 38-17, holding the Golden Eagles to one offensive rebound. The Dragons outscored Jacksonville 54-20 in the paint, 18-3 in second-chance points and 32-7 in points off of turnovers.

Davis scored a game-high 31 points, hitting six of Wenonah’s eight 3-pointers. Santez Pendleton added 15 points, and the Dragons got 12 apiece from Penn and J’Sean Bailey.

Nixon’s 26-point performance included 8-for-12 3-point shooting.

So ended a season of challenges that started when former Jacksonville standout Devin Barksdale transferred to Gadsden City and carried to the last game. Center Ben Pridgen suffered a dislocated kneecap in the area tournament and, playing with a brace, scored a combined five points in the subregional and regional games.

Still, the Golden Eagles got back to regional after a year’s absence, seeing their first regional action since winning back-to-back Class 4A state titles in 2022 and 2023.

“We had a lot of ups and downs,” said Herbert, a senior. “We lost a lot of good players, gained better players. It was just a rough journey, all in all.”