January 21, 2022
By Al Muskewitz
East Alabama Sports Today
Jacksonville on verge of historic night, plays Oxford in county boys final for first title in 27 years
JACKSONVILLE – The Jacksonville Golden Eagles made history in this year’s seeding meeting when they earned their first No. 1 seed to the Calhoun County Tournament since 1995.
Now, they have a chance to get a generational win playing for the tournament championship Friday night.
The Golden Eagles haven’t won a county boys title since that year they were last No. 1, but have the chance to end that drought after beating Alexandria in the semifinals Thursday night 80-66.
They’ll play second-seeded Oxford in Friday’s 8 p.m. boys title game. The Golden Eagles haven’t won a county title in 27 years, the Yellow Jackets have won it each of the last three years and four of the last five.
Of the teams that have won tournament titles since they did away with the Big School-Little School format, only Wellborn (1984) has a longer stretch between titles.
How much of a generational win will it be if they can pull it off? In 1995, Jacksonville star John Broom’s mother, Tracy, was one year removed from dominating the post for Jacksonville State. Golden Eagles coach Shane Morrow figures he was a high school senior in the stands watching the last Jacksonville No. 1 seed in the county tournament.
“We’re excited,” Morrow said. “I hope we’re not satisfied and I hope that didn’t take too much out of us because that was a hard-fought game. We had to gut one out right there. We’ll see what happens tomorrow.”
It was another game the Golden Eagles played without 6-9 Cade Phillips. The junior hurt his foot in the Anniston game last Friday and team officials say they are still in the dark about his status going forward. Waiting for a doctor to read the MRI, they say.
Morrow remained uncertain about Phillips’ status for the championship game, but with bigger prizes down the line, it didn’t seem likely he would play.
“Nobody knows, I can tell you that right now,” Morrow said. “You can hear all those rumors you want to, we still don’t know yet. We’re sitting on pins and needles like y’all are. We’re anxious to know. He’s anxious to play. It’s killing him not to play. I could tell on the bench it was bothering him.”
The game was close early, worthy of consideration as a championship game in the semifinals, but everything turned with less than four minutes in the third quarter.
The Cubs had gotten it to within two on a three-point play by Kory Cargill, but Julian Wright was hit with a technical foul in the exchange that led to the and-one.
Broom hit the two technical foul shots, Jaliek Long nailed a 3 on the accompanying possession and it eventually turned into a 12-2 run into the fourth quarter. It became a 14-point lead before the Cubs finally hit another field goal.
Broom led the Golden Eagles with 22 points, eight rebounds, five assists and four blocks. Caden Johnson and Long scored 14 apiece and Camren Johnson had 13.
The Golden Eagles got some major contributions from some lesser known players as well. Q Long and Ethan Duke gave valiant efforts defending Alexandria’s two bigs, Julian Wright and D’Anthony Walton.
Q scored only three points, but sacrificed his body to take several charges. Duke didn’t score at all, but he was a presence inside. Walton led Alexandria with 22 points and 19 rebounds. Wright had 12 points, Collin Taylor 11 and Cargill 10.
“It’s fun, I’m not going to lie, it’s fun,” Broom said. “We’ve got a really good team, a bunch of dogs. We weren’t really performing how we should have. We came out with that dog mentality. My teammates, they all played hard.
“We’ve got a bunch of competitors. We were missing our big today, we struggled with the boards. We had to get big. Everybody had to play, everybody had their part. I think we’re finally starting to figure out our roles and we’re all playing as a team.
“I lot of people didn’t think we’d do this good because we didn’t have our big. We were struggling, but we play our game, we’re fighting in there. Everybody’s fighting.”
Jacksonville 80, Alexandria 66
ALEXANDRIA – D’Anthony Walton 9-21 3-3 22, Julian Wright 6-10 0-2 12. Collin Taylor 5-12 1-1 11, Kory Cargal 3-6 4-6 10, Javais McGhee 4-10 0-1 8, Braxton Tucker 1-1 0-0 3, Damon Parr 0-0 0-0 0, Evan Snow 0-0 0-0 0, Javarious Williams 0-1 0-0 0. Totals 28-61 8-13 66.
JACKSONVILLE – John Broom 6-10 8-9 22, Caden Johnson 5-7 3-6 14, JaLeik Long 5-8 1-2 14, Camren Johnson 5-10 0-0 13, Devin Barksdale 4-6 0-1 9, Julian Hill 2-7 0-0 5, Quin Long 1-5 1-3 3, Ethan Duke 0-0 0-0 0, JaeTaj Morris 0-2 0-0 0. Totals 28-55 13-21 80.
Alexandria 12 23 12 19 – 66
Jacksonville 19 15 21 25 – 80
3-point goals: Alexandria 2-13 (Walton 1-6, Taylor 0-5, Tucker 1-1, Williams 0-1); Jacksonville 11-28 (Broom 2-3, Cd. Johnson 1-3, J. Long 3-4, Cm. Johnson 3-8, Barksdale 1-2, Hill 1-6, Morris 0-2). Rebounds: Alexandria 42 (Walton 19, Cargal 8); Jacksonville 30 (Broom 8). Technical fouls: Wright. Total fouls: Alexandria 17, Jacksonville 17. [**read more]
**When you click read more you will be taken to the EA Sports Today website. Please make sure to come back to read more Calhoun County News.
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