BROOKLYN – It’s been a long time since the Sumrall boys have had much success in basketball, but that has changed dramatically this season.
The Bobcats put on an offensive and defensive clinic Tuesday night, leading from start to finish in a 61-46 victory over Forrest County AHS in Region 7-4 A action at Ellis Shoemake Gym.
The win lifted Sumrall past the magic 20-win mark, against just three defeats, and capped an undefeated 8-0 season in region play. The Aggies, rebuilding after back-to-back 20-win seasons of their own, dropped to 10-14 overall and 2-5 in the region.
“A lot of it just these guys’ ability to work hard,” said Sumrall coach Eric Cooper, now in his third season guiding the Bobcat program. “They want this.
“They stated from Day One some of the things they wanted to achieve. When I came here three years ago, I wrote out some of the things they wanted to accomplish, and now we’re starting to see some of those goals being achieved. We’re not done yet; we’re still hungry.”
The Bobcats started a little slow, but used a blistering third quarter to turn a competitive game into a rout.
“All season, we’ve kind of started out slow, and we’ve been working on starting off fast,” said Bobcat senior Demond Shelby, who led Sumrall with 16 points. “It was just a matter of sticking with it and believing in our shot.”
Still, junior Jacyree Washington got the Bobcats going with a 3-point basket to fuel a 6-0 start, then hit a running jump shot from 12 feet to put Sumrall ahead 12-3, an early indication of how things would go.
“It’s a straight team concept,” said Washington. “We’ve been playing together now for the past couple of years, since my freshman year to now my junior year. We’ve gotten the chemistry down. When you get that chemistry down, you’re dangerous.”
Sumrall’s suffocating man-to-man defense, and a dominant performance on the defensive glass, gave the Aggies fits all night. FCAHS missed its first five shots from the field, and all of them were one-and-dones.
“They definitely outplayed us in every facet of the game, and that starts with me,” said Forrest County coach Scott Landry. “I’ve got to do a better job getting us ready to play. We’ve just got to learn from this and have a great practice tomorrow.”
Sumrall led 14-7 after the first quarter, and the Bobcats began to hit their stride offensively in the second quarter.
Shelby drove the baseline for a reverse layup on the period’s first possession, then swished back-to-back 3-balls as Sumrall built a 10-point advantage.
“That’s what we like,” said Shelby. “We like pushing the ball. That’s how we get our points. When you push the ball, you have fun getting easy shots.”
The Aggies stayed in the game by converting 5 of 10 shots from the field, including their only 3-pointer of the game, from sophomore Terrence Horne in what was otherwise a 10-3 Bobcat run.
Indeed, Sumrall was 7 of 12 from the field in the second period, as the Bobcats got scoring from five different players.
“That’s one thing we’ve been wanting to work on is ball movement,” said Cooper. “Sometimes we feel like we get too stagnant. So we put an emphasis on that in practice, moving the ball and giving everybody opportunities to get touches.
“And we’re not a one-man team. That’s what makes this so special. Any given night, it’s somebody else getting points, and that’s what I love. That’s true team basketball.”
Senior Rashawn Frazier – the Aggies’ only senior – got a layup to end the first half, and FCAHS was still in the game, trailing at halftime 31-23.
“We’ve just got to be more patient on offense,” said Landry. “Sometimes, we get to sped up, we don’t go through our reads and then start to panic a little bit. They did a good job defensively, and we’ve got to be more deliberate and patient.”
But the Bobcats put the pedal to the floor in the third quarter, scorching the nets as they outscored the Aggies 21-7.
It started out like Forrest County was going to close the margin, as junior Rico Kennedy got a putback layup on the opening possession of the second half, while Sumrall missed its first two shot, a 3-point attempt and a missed putback.
But the Bobcats didn’t miss the rest of the period, converting their last eight shots from the field, including three 3-pointers. Much of the offense came off eight turnovers in the period.
“It’s straight man-to-man,” said Cooper. “We don’t play any zone. We’ll play full-court man, half-court man, trap man. That’s our M.O.”
Everyone got in on the action for Sumrall. Seniors Damoris Merrick and William Hodges nailed back-to-back shots from downtown, then Shelby went coast-to-coast with a steal for a fast-break layup.
Washington also had a fast-break layup off a defensive rebound to cap the decisive 15-0 run that put the game out of reach.
FCAHS salvaged some pride in the fourth quarter, outscoring the Bobcats 16-9 in the final period, but it was too little too late.
Frazier led the Aggies with 11 points and junior Calvin Alexander added eight points. Washington finished with 14 points and Hodges added nine points for Sumrall.
While the Bobcats are secure in the top spot heading into the region tournament at Lawrence County, Forrest County’s seeding will depend on the outcome of its regular-season finale on Thursday at Purvis.
“It depends on some of the scenarios with the other teams in the region,” said Landry. “It could be us against (Purvis) for the 3-seed. I don’t think we can get the second spot, but we could be anywhere from the No. 3 to the No. 5, depending on what happens.”
Meanwhile, Sumrall will test itself on Friday, hosting Region 8-4A champion Pass Christian in a non-region showdown that could well be a Class 4A Final Four preview.
“I tell them every day at the end of practice, and they can vouch for it,” said Cooper. “I tell them they can go as far as they want to go. These guys have the mindset of where they want to go.”
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