CLASS 3A AREA 5 BOYS: ACA reaches area finals for first time in four years
ACA’S Conner Mark attempts to shoot over Dallas County forward Josh Davis in the Eagles’ win in the Class 3A Area 5 semifinals on Monday. (Tim Gayle)
By TIM GAYLE
Alabama Christian coach Trace Hill couldn’t single out a player responsible for Monday’s 68-58 win over Dallas County.
The first-year coach had contributions from every Eagle who took the floor, on both ends of the floor, to rally past the Hornets in the Class 3A Area 5 Tournament semifinals and earn a playoff berth for the first time since 2021.
ACA will play Montgomery Academy for the 3A Area 5 Tournament championship on Wednesday at 6 p.m. Both teams will advance to the sub-regional round on Saturday.
“It’s huge for our confidence as a team, it’s huge for the ACA basketball program as a whole,” Hill said. “It’s just a big, big win for the ACA community tonight.”
ACA (15-10) earned a spot in Saturday’s sub-regional round for only the second time in the last eight seasons, a span that covers five head coaches in the Eagles’ basketball program.
It looked as if their season might end in the semfinals again as Dallas County rolled out to a 21-13 lead heading into the second quarter. The Hornets’ leading scorer, Josh Davis, had torched the Eagles for 51 points in the last meeting between the two teams and fired off a pair of quick 3-pointers on Monday to put the Hornets in control.
But Hill would alternate senior AC Walters and freshman Levi Summers the remainder of the game, with Walters face guarding Davis and denying him the ball for much of the game and Summers coming off the bench to spell Walters from the demanding assignment.
“You want to talk about an amazing effort,” Hill said. “They didn’t give up, they didn’t take a play off. He is too good of a player to keep from scoring, but to limit him to only 24 was a fantastic job.”
Davis would finish with 24 points, including 10 in the fourth quarter as the Hornets fought to avoid elimination, but there were only six field goals after the early 3-pointers.
With Davis somewhat in check, the Eagles would need to find the offense to rally from a deficit that was seven to eight points for much of the first half and the early moments of the third quarter.
“I just challenged the guys at halftime,” Hill said. “We had a game plan, we didn’t change the game plan that we had, I just told them to trust what we’ve done the whole week (in practice) and it ended up paying off for us.”
Conner Mark kept the Eagles within striking distance, hitting a 3-pointer in the first quarter and adding 12 points in the second quarter before foul trouble hampered him in the second half.
Christian Snipes added six of his 10 points in the first half to rally the Eagles from an eight-point hole early in the second quarter.
“Those two guys, I challenged them because a lot of times we like to settle for jump shots,” Hill said. “They have the ability to get all the way to the rim and finish, which is what I challenged them to do. They did well tonight. I’m proud of everybody. They all played really, really good.”
With Mark on the bench for long periods of the second half, Mac Moorer scored all 15 of his points in the final 16 minutes, giving his team a 44-40 lead with a minute left in the third quarter on a 3-pointer.
“Mac hit some pretty big 3s for us toward the end,” Hill said.
The game was tied at 54-54 with four minutes left before the Eagles went on an 11-2 run to put the game out of reach, using four baskets from four different players.
Mark led the Eagles with 20 points and four rebounds, followed by Jayden Jones with 15 points, four assists and three rebounds, Moorer with 15 points and three steals and Snipes with 10 points and five rebounds.
Coby Carter followed Davis in scoring with 10 points, with eight of them coming in the first quarter for Dallas County (14-12). Mike Hosea added eight.