SUMRALL – It’s been a few years since the Sumrall boys basketball program has been relevant.
That's no longer the case.
The Bobcats put together a dominant fourth quarter to defeat Columbia 47-34 on Friday night, putting Sumrall two victories away from matching the program’s win total from last season.
Being no stranger to turning programs around is Sumrall head coach Eric Cooper. In Cooper’s previous job at Purvis, he took the Tornadoes a seven-win season in his first year to 23 in his third.
“You have to start with a foundation,” Cooper said. If the foundation is not good, then you can’t build on it. When we first took over, we had a good foundation. It’s all about taking that foundation and putting those blocks together. Once that foundation was laid, that’s when we started adding to it.”
And now, in his third year of leading the Bobcats, Cooper is at it again. Except this time, it’s a little sweeter since Sumrall is his alma mater.
“To come home and to be able to have this success is kind of that fairy tale kind of story that you dream of as a kid,” Cooper said. “To lead the program that built you is truly remarkable.
“It usually takes five years to build a program, and to see it come about in Year 3 is remarkable. It’s all about defense for us. We want guys to give maximum effort every night. If I have five, six, seven, or eight guys that average nine points apiece and are hustling on defense, then that’s all we want. We don’t want to have just that one guy.”
Sure enough, defense and equal distribution on offense is how Sumrall (13-3, 2-0) got past Columbia.
The Bobcats had early control as a 6-0 run to end the first quarter gave them a 13-7 lead.
After holding a 22-15 lead at the half, the Wildcats went on a 10-0 run to start the third quarter. Columbia (8-7, 1-1) attempted 10 free throws in the run, going 7-for-12 from the line in the quarter.
“It was all mental for us,” Cooper said. “Those fouls lead to us not being in our defensive positions. We were reaching and being lazy. If we had just gotten our spots, we wouldn’t have been put in that situation, and it allowed us to maintain rhythm.”
It prompted Cooper to call a timeout after Columbia took the lead for the first time at 25-22.
“The feeling was to keep level-headed and not let the moment (get the best of us) and get down on ourselves,” said senior forward William Hodges on what was said during the timeout. “It was stick to know what we can do. Stick to our offense and defense, and then eventually they would break down, and we would seal it.”
Sumrall responded by outscoring Columbia 12-5 in the final stretch of the quarter and retook the lead at 35-32, with Sumrall’s Owen Hatten hitting a layup as time expired.
Columbia knocked down a bucket to open the fourth quarter, but the momentum was short-lived, with the Bobcats outscoring the Wildcats 12-0 to close out the game. Spearheading the late spark was Hodges, who scored eight of his team-leading 14 points in the quarter. Notably, Jaycree Washington also scored in double-digits as he posted 10 points.
“We finally got into our sets and started moving the ball around a lot better, so things started opening up,” Hodges. “I started to go up with the ball, and it started going in.
“The past couple of years, we have talked about (being relevant again), and this year, we finally have some older guys with experience. We feel like we could really make a run this year and go as far as we want to go.”
True to the identity of the team’s offense, Hodges is the team’s fourth-leading scorer, as he has averaged 7.5 points per game this season.
“Will is a great kid,” Cooper said. “He knows what he is capable of and plays within his means. I thought by him stepping up and being the great leader that he is and showing great leadership (was key). He really wants it. We never know who is going to have (the big game). It’s going to be somebody different every night. That’s what makes us special and makes him so special. It’s the willingness to share the spotlight.”
Sumrall will travel to play Lawrence County on Tuesday night, with tipoff set for 7:30 p.m.
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