On a night highlighted by upsets in the girls’ bracket, the boys’ seeds easily held up in the semifinals of the District 5-A tournament at Arts & Sciences.
The top-seeded Arts & Sciences boys cruised to an 83-38 win over Copper Basin and Boyd-Buchanan rolled past Grace Academy 67-46 to set up a rematch of last year’s district final, won by the Patriots.
“We stepped up defensively and played really well on that end,” said Buccaneers coach Zach Roddenberry. “I told the guys before the tournament started, this is a journey we’re about to begin and you can’t win it all until you win that first game, so this was a big first step.”
Playing in their first game after a six-day layoff, the Bucs looked fresh in a 12-1 second-quarter run that helped them take a commanding lead they held throughout the second half. Cooper Hodge led Boyd-Buchanan with 25 points.
“We lost to CSAS in the district championship last year, and I think our guys are tired of losing to them,” said Roddenberry, adding that he is 0-5 against the Patriots since taking over the Bucs program.
The semifinals evening began with one of the biggest postseason upsets in the area so far as Grace’s girls knocked off top-seeded Arts & Sciences 52-50. That was followed by Boyd-Buchanan’s girls beating second-seeded Silverdale Baptist 53-42.
The tournament wraps up today at CSAS, beginning at 3 with the girls’ consolation game, followed by the boys’ consolation, then girls’ and boys’ championship games.
The CSAS girls had won the previous two meetings with Grace by 18 and 25 points and less than two weeks ago led by 20-plus after the first quarter. But Friday the Lady Golden Eagles – who start two freshman, an eighth-grader and a sophomore along with senior Claire McMasters – led throughout the first half, taking a five-point advantage into halftime, then held off the Lady Patriots’ late rally.
McMasters scored 15 of her game-high 28 points in the first half and finished with four 3-pointers. She also had 15 rebounds, while Maggie Long added 12 points off the bench for Grace and Lennex Walker led CSAS with 17.
“Even though we’re young, now we have played 20 games and we’ve dealt with their press and figured it out,” Grace coach Roger Edwards said. “Having a strong start in the first quarter was huge, because that had been our downfall against them earlier.”
Although on a smaller scale, Boyd-Buchanan’s girls pulled off an upset of their own, avenging a pair of narrow regular-season losses to Silverdale with a strong first quarter, then pulling away late. Marissa McCalla led the Lady Bucs with 16 points and Maddie Abed had 14, including four 3s.
Darius Graves led three CSAS boys in double-figure scoring with 16 points, with three 3s, while Todd Lansden added 13 and Jameel Dodds scored 10.
Contact Stephen Hargis at shargis@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6293. Follow him on Twitter @StephenHargis.