SCHWEERS CCC TOURNEY: Autaugaville boys, Trinity girls take tourney titles

By TIM GAYLE

Autaugaville raced through the 26th annual Jack Schweers Capital City Conference tournament unbeaten and relatively unchallenged, beating Trinity 57-37 in the championship game at Trinity on Monday night.

The tournament experience had a different meaning for different Eagles, however.

“It tells me we can play against anybody,” said most valuable player Dewaun Stubbs, the 6-foot-8 senior who had 17 points in the first half to allow his team to coast to another victory.

His coach wasn’t viewing the tournament through the same lens. 

“We need some more work,” Autaugaville coach Darren Golson said. “It shows you what you need to work on, playing these caliber teams in this atmosphere.”

The Class 1A Eagles used the same formula that worked against 4A St. James on Friday and 3A Prattville Christian on Saturday, using Stubbs as a disruptive force on both ends of the floor. The senior was 9 of 14 from the field to finish with 22 points, seven rebounds, three steals, three blocked shots and three assists. 

“When we executed what we were trying to do against him, he didn’t hurt us,” Trinity coach Matt Arrighi said. “Now, other guys made shots when we compressed too much. When you’re playing a team like that, you’ve got to try to make somebody else beat you and they did have some guys that hit it, but unfortunately ‘15’ (Stubbs) hurt us a lot more than we wanted. We didn’t fully buy in to understanding what it was going to take to keep him from the rim.”

Or perhaps it was the success of the teammates that provided a distraction to the Trinity defense. Jermaine Sanders added 10 points, but it was the play of Makenzie Bristow-Matthews that altered the outcome of the game. With Autaugaville clinging to a 9-6 lead entering the second quarter, the 255-pound Matthews bounced outside and hit a 3-pointer and added another later in the game, although most of his 17 points came in the paint.

“That frees up ‘Stretch’ (Stubbs), he’s not getting pounded all the time,” Golson said. “When you play inside, you’re going to get hit and beat up, so it just adds another dimension. When we need height on the inside, we put ‘Stretch’ in there; when we need finesse, we put Matthews in there. He can handle the ball and shoot from outside.”

Matthews was a key component in the Eagles’ win, but he found himself open because Trinity’s attention was focused on Stubbs, who made four of his five second-quarter shots to help Autaugaville outscore Trinity 18-4 in the second quarter and settle the outcome by halftime.

“In the first half, I had to step up, I had to put my team on my back,” Stubbs said. “In the second half, I could just calm down and let them work.”

He took just four shots in the second half as the Eagles (13-0) seemed content with the lead they had established in the first half. 

“You’ve got to keep them focused,” Golson said. “Sometimes, I notice during the games, we get lax. If we’re up (big), we just go through the motions instead of playing a complete game, playing the right way.”

Jon Cole Portis led Trinity (8-3) with 14 points. While the Wildcats struggled to cut into the Autaugaville lead, Arrighi liked the way his team attacked the Eagle defense in the second half. 

“At the end of the day, if we can hold them in the 50s, I probably would have taken that,” Arrighi said. “We just have to do a better job on scoring on offense than we did in the first half. We just didn’t make shots, but a lot of it was because we weren’t aggressive enough.”

Trinity girls top MA

Trinity coach Blake Smith might not have admitted he was more nervous than his players, but Monday’s matchup with Montgomery Academy was a game he could have circled on his calendar before the season started.

Trinity’s lack of a physical presence had been exposed in the Wildcats’ last two trips to regionals and now they were placed in an area with Montgomery Academy and Prattville Christian Academy, two teams that competed for a state championship just two years ago. 

He had a dozen questions swirling in his mind before the championship game of the 26th annual Jack Schweers Capital City Conference tournament. After his team pulled off a 41-37 win over the Eagles, he felt those questions had been answered.

“We know over time this group of girls is going to be good,” he said. “Is it going to be this year? Is it going to be next year? Have we reached a point where we can play against a very well coached veteran (MA) team with the addition of a very good player (Chloe Johnson) so that they’re better than they were last year? Can we be in that game and compete? That’s ultimately what I wanted to see.

“This win, in the grand scheme of things, doesn’t mean anything. We’ll play them, at a minimum, two more times. I think we knew initially Trinity wasn’t in that conversation. We think we’re probably in that conversation now.”

Trinity (11-0) put itself in the conversation with an intense defense, a stifling, swarming and relentless effort that continued until the final whistle and clearly caught Montgomery Academy off guard. It wasn’t over until tournament most valuable player Emma Kate Smith drained a pair of free throws with 1.6 seconds left, taking every ounce of effort from the Wildcats. But when the final horn sounded, they swarmed each other as if they had won a championship, knowing it was only the first of several meetings between the area rivals this year. 

“It doesn’t matter whether it’s in a Christmas tournament or an area game, it’s always a big game for us,” Emma Kate Smith said. “We haven’t beaten them in a while – we’ve been close but we haven’t beaten them – so it was pretty special for us.

“I think we definitely needed it. We needed that confidence booster. All the teams we’ve played this year have been really physical, so we’ve been thinking about how we’ve been pretty good, but we know MA is going to be a tough game. That’s how we can test ourselves on how much tougher we’ve gotten.”

The Eagles (8-2) had advanced to the finals with a hard-fought win over Prattville Christian on Saturday, continuing a poor shooting effort that improved dramatically on Monday but still wasn’t enough. Gabby Ramirez hit 4 of 6 shots from the 3-point arc to finish with 12 points as the Eagles hit 6 of 14 from behind the arc, perhaps their best performance this month. 

“I thought they outplayed us,” Montgomery Academy coach Reg Mantooth said. “I told (the players) if we had ended up winning there at the end, I’m not sure we would have deserved to win. A lot of credit goes to Trinity and hopefully it’s something to help us learn from and get better.

“We just did a bad job executing on offense. We had some turnovers that we don’t usually make, but that’s a credit to their defense. We just have to get better. That’s the first time we’ve struggled to execute anything offensively. We’ve struggled shooting the ball some but we haven’t struggled to execute.”

The two teams battled evenly throughout the game. Montgomery Academy surged into the lead late in the first quarter and again midway through the third period, only to have Trinity chip away at the lead. 

With the game tied late, Mary Alice Sasser made the first of two free-throw attempts, but Leighton Robertson rebounded the second attempt and lost the ball out of bounds, giving possession back to Trinity. Emma Kate and her younger sister Maddie then kept the ball away from the frustrated Eagles until Maddie was fouled and hit both ends of the one-and-one.

On the ensuing possession, Ramirez drove into the lane for a shot but was body checked by Sasser, forcing a shot that came up short. Sasser was fouled and made another free throw as the Wildcats scored their final seven points at the free-throw line.

Emma Kate Smith finished with 18 points, followed by Maddie Smith with 13.

“They have seven seniors on their team that have been to the final four and have all that experience,” Emma Kate Smith said. “It’s cool for us to win like that, having never been that far in the state tournament.”

And while she only had a pair of third-quarter baskets, the play of forward Kaylee Peevy was pivotal as she held her own against older, more experienced players. 

“One of my favorite players I’ve ever coached is Kaylee Peevy,” Blake Smith said. “But can she match up with the people they throw in? I think she proved she can. Tonight, she rose to the occasion.”

The two Smith sisters were on the all-tournament team along with Trinity’s Mary Davis Bricken, Montgomery Academy’s Ann Cobern Chapman and Ramirez.

Blake Smith pointed out his team might not win another game against Montgomery Academy this season, but at least his questions were answered.

“They’re really good and if you were to say, ‘Who’s going to win state?’ I’d say MA is probably going to win state,” he said, “but I’m not going to leave our name out of that conversation and I also realize we can say that and that’s not going to make us shrink in fear.”

If Monday’s game was a test on being physical, Emma Kate Smith and her teammates aced the quiz.

“I guess we’re just tired of being the ones pushed around,” she said. “When we start pushing back, they’re not used to that from us.”

Joining Stubbs on the all-tournament team were Sanders, Matthews, Portis and Trinity’s Beau O’Ferrell.

Both teams have alterations to their schedule. Trinity was scheduled to play Park Crossing in the opening round of the Dwight Madison Classic, but now that the tournament has been canceled, the Wildcats will play Park Crossing at home on Monday. Autaugaville isn’t scheduled to return to action until Jan. 11 against Dallas County and Jan. 12 against Maplesville, but it trying to get the Hornets’ game moved to Jan. 13.

BOYS BASKETBALL 

St. James 55, Montgomery Academy 34

Bradley Thomas scored 23 points as the Trojans rallied from a first-quarter deficit with a 14-6 run in the second quarter to grab control of the game for fifth place in the 26th Jack Schweers Capital City Conference Tournament on Monday at Trinity.

St. James (6-3) lost to tournament champion Autaugaville in an opening round game but battled back to beat BTW Magnet and Montgomery Academy as K.J. Jackson added eight points in Monday’s game with the Eagles.

Britton Kohn led Montgomery Academy (1-3) with 12 points and eight rebounds. Thomas Kirkham added nine points and 11 rebounds, while Nigel Walker contributed six points and nine rebounds.

Montgomery Academy travels south to play in the Elba tournament and will face Highland Home in an opening round game on Monday.

Booker T. Washington 89, Catholic 83

TUSKEGEE -- LJ Green had 21 points, 10 steals and six assists for the Knights in an 89-83 loss in the Booker T. Washington gym on Monday night.

DJ Jamerson had 16 points and 12 rebounds for Catholic (3-4), followed by DJ Carter and TJ Dudley with 10 points each. 

GIRLS BASKETBALL

St. James 56, Alabama Christian 39

K.K. Hall scored 18 points and Danielle Green added 17 as St. James pulled away with a 31-18 advantage in the second half to take fifth place in the 26th Jack Schweers Capital City Conference tournament at Trinity on Monday. 

Ava Card added 14 points for the Trojans (9-5), which lost an opening round game to Montgomery Academy before battling back with wins over LAMP and ACA. 

Michaelyn Manning and Sarah Johnson each poured in a dozen points for the Lady Eagles.

St. James returns to action on Jan. 4 at home against Reeltown.