Houck, McGraw lead Yellow Jackets to sixth straight area title
SPRINGVILLE – Winning an area tournament is hard. Now, try doing it on the championship game opponent’s home court.
Oxford proved itself the ultimate road warrior Friday night, going into Springville and knocking off the Tigers 57-52 to win the Class 6A Area 13 tournament for its sixth straight area title.
“To go on the road and win that game is really hard,” Oxford coach Joel VanMeter said. “I think it just shows the growth of our team and the growth of the individuals on our team. When you start in November you’re here and what do you do in February. You get better.”
The Yellow Jackets will now host Area 11 runner-up Woodlawn in their subregion game Tuesday. Springville travels to Huffman.
They didn’t name an MVP of the tournament, but the case could be made for senior guard Mike McGraw. Rylan Houck may be the Yellow Jackets’ recognized scoring leader, but the job McGraw did defensively was equally impressive.
On Friday he held Springville guard John Wolf scoreless. In the semifinals against Pell City, he held Evan Watson to five points and those came in the final two minutes after McGraw had come out of the game.
“Mike McGraw was tremendous,” VanMeter said. “He controlled the game offensively and defense. It’s been a slow process for him to challenge himself to be uncomfortable and get outside of himself and make himself be better and better and better; I think he’s slowly learned how to do that.
“He’s always been a good player. Sometimes it takes kids a little bit longer and he’s learned to challenge himself. His teammates have helped him with that a ton and you see the product on the floor when he does challenge himself.”
The Jackets took a huge punch in the first quarter and fell behind 16-8. They rallied to lead by one at halftime and pushed it to 40-29 in the third quarter. Springville rallied and eventually went up by one, but then Kyler Wright hit back-to-back 3s to end the threat.
Houck finished with 16 points. Jayden Lewis came off the bench to score 15, Wright had 12 and Jaylon Alexander made several big shots on his way to nine points. [*** read more]
