There will be a new boys’ champion at the Times Free Press Best of Preps basketball tournament, and it took only one round for Red Bank to make sure of that.
The Lions used a dominant fourth quarter to knock off McCallie 60-49 on Thursday evening at Chattanooga State, where the event with eight-team brackets for boys’ and girls’ teams got underway.
After a first half in which the teams traded the lead multiple times, McCallie led by two going into the fourth quarter. D.J. Wilbur’s 3-pointer with seven minutes remaining put the Lions ahead, though, and they were 9-of-12 on free throws down the stretch to put the game away.
“I thought we grew up tonight,” said Red Bank coach Nick Fike, whose team improved to 10-2 overall. “We only have one starter back (from last season) and three guys total with varsity experience, so we have a lot of inexperience overall. But they’ve been working, and I thought our preparation the past few days helped win this game.
“We took some beatings over the Christmas break, which probably did us some good because that was a wake-up call that we weren’t where we wanted to be just yet. We know they have size and we’re a small team in general, so we had to tried to impose our physicality. I thought we did a good job of that down the stretch and executed our game plan.”