In their first appearance at the Percy Griffin Basketball Tournament, the Faith Middle School boys and girls basketball teams were knocked out of contention Thursday in the opening round at Rothschild Middle School.
The Faith girls lost to East Columbus Magnet Academy, 33-21, despite defeating East Columbus in the regular season by one point in overtime.
The Lady Warrior Bears trailed by three points going into the fourth quarter, but the feeling of the end of the season began to sink in on the quiet Faith bench as East Columbus outscored Faith 15-6 in the fourth period.
Chyna Thomas led Faith with 13 points in her last game in a Faith uniform.
“I’m just disappointed for the girls, not because they lost, but because we’ve been doing this since September,” Faith girls coach Mikki Raines said. “I guess they didn’t think it was that final (game), but it is.”
Offensively, Faith had difficulty with protecting the ball from an aggressive East Columbus defense. The Lady Warrior Bears struggled to inbound the ball and break through the East Columbus press coverage.
“We were making silly mistakes,” Raines said. “We didn’t calm down or relax. Their press gave us trouble and they had two people on Chyna and we couldn’t adjust to that. She handles everything; she’s our leader out there.”
Faith finished 6-6 for the regular season, which Raines called a success in her first season as coach and the team’s first season as being part of the Muscogee County league.
“There are a lot of things we’ve improved on from the time of our first game up until now,” Raines said. “Each game I’ve seen an improvement. That’s all I can ask for. Going 6-6 in our first year in the Muscogee league, that’s an accomplishment and I’m proud of the girls.”
Faith boys coach Karl Ivey had similar things to say about his team after losing to Rothschild Middle School 50-38. Though the Faith boys finished 4-8 for the regular season, Ivey said playing a tougher schedule this year benefited players much more than in the past.
“If you can always win playing lesser competition, it’s not really teaching them much,” Ivey said. “But with this, they had to actually come out and play hard to get wins.”
Though the Warrior Bears played solid on offense, Rothschild’s perimeter shooting was too much for them to overcome. Faith players struggled to contest jump shots and gave Rothschild a slew of open looks.
“We go over close-out drills all the time and the guys just didn’t close out,” Ivey said. “That helped (Rothschild) push up the lead over us with those open looks.”
Jeffrey Taylor led Faith with 10 points while Kyle Castleton had nine and Josh Pentz had seven. Castleton, Pentz, Bryun Burden and Karl Ivey will each be leaving Faith and moving on to high school.
Coach Ivey said he is confident about each of those player’s chances to play for a high school team after being exposed to tougher competition. Ivey said that for those players who may be returning to play for Faith next year, the regular season and the Percy Griffin Tournament have set a standard of expectation that his team must live up to.
“It meant a lot for them, especially to see how well they can go out and compete,” Ivey said. “For the seventh-graders, it gives them things to look forward to and to work on during the summer so they can come back and make the team a lot better for next year.”
