After a rough Wednesday in which area boys’ basketball teams were winless in eight first-round games in the GHSA state playoffs, Calhoun turned the tables Thursday night with a 72-53 home victory over Savannah’s Jenkins to reach the second round in Class AAA.
The Yellow Jackets (20-13), the Region 7-AA champions and their state bracket’s No. 4 seed, trailed 2-0 before scoring 11 of the next 12 points and never looked back.
Calhoun freshman Trace Hawkins led the scoring with 24 points, including 13 in the second quarter. Hawkins, the MVP of the football Yellow Jackets’ state championship victory in December, had seven points in a 11-0 run to start the period that pushed Calhoun’s lead to 15 and later ended the quarter with a 3-pointer that made it 41-24.
The Jackets quickly built the margin to 20 early in the third and allowed 29th-seeded Jenkins (14-13) only briefly to get any closer.
Jaxon Moore added 15 points and Jace Johnson 13 for the hosts, while Hawkins had four steals and Blake Hammett and Trey Perkins grabbed seven rebounds each for the Jackets, who will host Dougherty in a second-round matchup Saturday.