DALTON, Ga. - There are rarely any good scenarios when your best player - a reigning region player of the year, no less - misses the first four-fifths of a basketball season.
Northwest Whitfield's boys and coach Ryan Richards, though, are reaping benefits from star senior Luke Shiflett sitting out most of the schedule after injuring an ankle late in football season. They were on display Thursday at the Region 6-AAAA tournament, where the Bruins, now fully healthy, started strong and ended even stronger while getting past Heritage, 69-52.
Northwest (19-8) will face LaFayette, a 64-36 winner over Ridgeland, in tonight's championship game. It's the second consecutive season those teams will compete for the title.
On the girls' side Pickens held off Heritage 52-43, and top-seeded Northwest had no trouble with Gilmer, 62-22. Pickens and Northwest will decide the girls' title at 7, preceding the boys' championship.
Shiflett, the Middle Tennessee State University-bound quarterback, scored a game-high 21 points, including 12 in the opening period as the Bruins took a 20-12 lead. His ability to break down the Generals on the perimeter and either score or dish off was a key throughout the game, as was Northwest's improved depth.
"It's nice having him back," Richards said of Shiflett. "He was special in the first half. He's still trying to get in the flow, and this week was the most minutes he's played. I'm really proud of him, and I'm proud of the other guys for helping him get back into the flow of our game.
"We've built a ton of depth over the course of the season when he was out. We are 11-2 since the beginning of January. We weren't a great team early in the season, but the guys have taken to their roles and we've come on."
Heritage (18-9), which will play Ridgeland in today's third-place game, elected to take the ball out of Shiflett's hands as much as possible in the second quarter, but Chris Cunningham and Bryce Reese made the Generals pay. The pair combined for all 14 Northwest points in the final seven minutes of the period as the Bruins took a 35-21 lead into halftime.
The lead grew to 16 with 1:44 left in the third after a Reese 3-pointer, but the Generals scored the final four points of the period and cut it to 10 early in the fourth on back-to-back Wilcox putbacks. The lead shrank to seven moments later after Blake Bryan hit a runner in the lane.
Soon, though, the game would be out of reach as a Heritage turnover led to Wilcox fouling out with nearly six minutes remaining.
"I'm proud of our guys," Heritage coach Kevin Terry said. "We were down big and cut it to seven and had a breakaway and maybe could have cut it to five, but we couldn't make it and turned it over, and then Cole fouled out. They are hot right now with Shiflett back, and I think they will give LaFayette a tough time tomorrow night."
Shiflett, who drew the fifth foul on the 6-foot-5 Wilcox with a pump fake, hit two free throws to start a killing 10-0 run.
"We're starting to peak some," Shiflett said. "I'm not really sure where I am physically - not 100 percent, for sure - but not bad. I've played three full games, and I feel OK. As a team we can be dangerous. We're a pretty athletic team, we can score and we can play some defense, so we can be hard to handle."
Cunningham added 20 points and Reese had 14 for the Bruins, while Wilcox had 14 points and Will Allen 10 for the Generals.
Contact Lindsey Young at lyoung@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6296. Follow him on Twitter @youngsports22.