ATHENS, Tenn. — His team’s furious rally had just fallen short in the District 5-AA tournament final Tuesday, yet McMinn Central basketball coach Doug Armstrong was in an upbeat mood.
He wasn’t happy about the 80-76 loss to regular-season champ Sequoyah, but the veteran Chargers coach saw enough to know his team can compete against quality opponents. It’s not something he could have said a few weeks ago.
“We started the year 2-7 and we fought our way back to where we are, so I knew this team had a lot of fight in them,” Armstrong said of his 14-12 team, which will host Howard in the region tournament Saturday. “I knew we would come out tonight in the second half and play hard and compete, but I hate it that we dug the big hole we dug early.
“We know Sequoyah and we allowed them to do what they do well in the first half, and it was too big a hill to climb.”
Sequoyah (25-4), which will host Tyner on Saturday, had beaten the Chargers handily in two regular-season games, so when the Chiefs rode the hot hand of Tevin West to a 20-6 lead after six minutes, it appeared another rout was at hand. That prospect looked even more realistic after a 10-0 run midway through the second period — six points coming from hard-driving Jethro Griffin — that pushed the lead to 16.