AHSAA 3A BOYS FINAL: Catholic's shot at revenge falters against Fyffe
DJ Jamerson of Catholic shoots over Fyffe’s Brody Dalton in the Class 3A Boys championship game on Friday. (Tim Gayle)
By TIM GAYLE
BIRMINGHAM – For the second time in three months, Catholic reached the championship game, only to see its offense sputter against the Fyffe defense.
The Knights shot just 28 percent from the field and could never shoot their way back into the game, falling to the Red Devils 49-43 in the 3A boys’ state finals at Bill Harris Arena on Friday afternoon.
“The numbers didn’t look very good,” Catholic coach Mike Curry said, “but they had something to do with that. They’re tough defensively. They wall up, they don’t foul a lot, they’re a really good basketball team. And they’re disciplined. They’re a mature basketball team and they don’t foul a whole lot.”
The loss came three months after several of the same players on Fyffe’s basketball team handed the football playing Knights a 21-16 loss in the 3A championship game, marking the first time a team has swept football and boys’ basketball titles from the same opponent.
It was Catholic’s first trip to the state finals in boys’ basketball since winning back-to-back titles in 1999 and 2000.
Fyffe (27-6) won its final game coached by longtime Red Devil coach Neal Thrash.
“I wasn’t able to actually do that (win a championship) on a team and I had a couple of teams that I’ve coached that were good enough to win it for one reason or another,” Thrash said. “This one is really special, to go out this way.
“Our girls have a long history of winning championships. Then, the football team, too. This group of kids wanted to keep winning one more time and one more game, so that’s what they did.”
The Red Devils had a statistical advantage in almost every category, including rebounding, assists, free throws, blocked shots, points in the paint and points off the fastbreak.
“The game came down to the little things,” Curry said. “Free throws, defensively as far as walling up, rebounding, making layups. You can never get bored with the basics and there were some basic plays and basic things that happened tonight that we didn’t do very well. When you’re not taking care of the basics, they’re a little more glaring when you’re playing good teams. We weren’t very good tonight.”
Catholic missed its first nine shots from the field – along with a pair of turnovers – yet trailed just 6-3 when LJ Green made the Knights’ first basket with 2:18 remaining in the first quarter. Catholic trailed just 9-8 entering the second quarter, but continued to shoot poorly with missed layups, missed jumpers in the lane, missed 3 pointers and missed shots from the baseline. No matter what they tried, they struggled to connect.
“In the third quarter, we held them to four points,” Curry pointed out. “The problem is, we only scored seven. We didn’t make up that much ground.”
Myles Butler, who sat out for more than half the game in foul trouble, kept the Knights close in the fourth quarter with a pair of 3 pointers, but his baskets were the only points scored by Catholic in the final four and a half minutes.
Fyffe shooters missed the front end of the one-and-one three times and hit just 3 of 13 free-throw attempts in the final four minutes.
“The problem is, we missed layups and we missed free throws down on this end,” Curry observed. “We could have gotten it to a one-possession game and we missed the opportunity.”
Green finished with 19 points, three assists and five steals, followed by Butler and TJ Dudley with eight points each for Catholic (21-6), which had a 16-game winning streak snapped in the process.
Parker Godwin led Fyffe with 21 points, followed by Brody Dalton with 12 points and 11 rebounds and Micah Johnson wit 11 points and seven rebounds.
Godwin, the tournament’s most valuable player, was joined on the all-tournament team by Dalton, Green, Dudley and Winfield’s Logan Feltman.