Barbour County wins Prep Classic title

OZARK — Barbour County head coach Raymond White might practice his team more often on Christmas Day.

Following a post-Thanksgiving loss after not practicing, the Jaguar boss made it a point to practice Christmas Day in preparation for the Dothan Progress/Dothan Eagle/Southern Star Holiday Prep Classic.

The decision paid off as the Class 2A top-ranked Jaguars won four straight games to win the Prep Classic title, including a 70-57 win Wednesday over rival Eufaula, Class 5A’s fourth-ranked team.

To view the Enterprise vs. Robertsdale game, click here.

Enterprise took third place at the tournament, rallying from three down in the final 1:30 with a 10-0 run for a 76-69 win over Robertsdale.

Barbour County won its first Holiday Prep Classic. It was also the first for White, a veteran coach in the county.

“This team has been great for me,” White said. “They gave me my 600th win earlier this season and now my first Holiday Prep Classic championship. What more can I say.”

The win avenged Barbour County’s only two losses of the year and ended Eufaula’s unbeaten season. Barbour County is now 13-2 and Eufaula 16-1.

The seeds of the title, felt White, was a practice on Christmas Day.

After losing to Eufaula two days after Thanksgiving, White felt his team had to practice Christmas Day if it wanted to do well at the Holiday Prep Classic.

“I told the team then that we had to practice,” White said. “In my 34 years of coaching, I have never practiced on Christmas until this year. We had to play Opelika (in the first round) and we had to win (to stay in the tournament), so we practiced on Christmas.”

After beating 6A Opelika, the Jaguars followed with wins over 4A Bullock County, 6A Enterprise and 5A Eufaula.

In Wednesday’s win, the Jaguars stymied Eufaula’s offense and kept the run-minded and offensive-board crashing Tigers from doing what they do best.

“We decided we were going to play a spread 2-1-2 defense to take off the wings (shots),” White said. “If anybody wanted to shot at the top, fine, but we wanted to take away the threes.

“We wanted to block out and get rebounds. We wanted to run our fastbreak and we wanted to stop their fastbreak. At the beginning of the game, they got one or two fastbreaks, but we stopped that.”

The Tigers made only 20-of-61 shots (32.7 percent) and made just five 3-pointers — four, though, coming in the final minutes after the game was decided.

Barbour County also won the rebounding battle 30-28, though Eufaula did have success in the second quarter.

After a mostly tight first quarter, Barbour County scored six straight late to pull out to a 12-6 lead. J.J. Richardson had a 3-pointer, Devondrick Richardson a turnaround jumper down low and Robert Lampley made 1-of-2 free throws.

Calvin Thomas, who almost singlehandly kept Eufaula in it, scored on a layup in the final seconds to make it 12-8.

The game stayed close in the second quarter, but Barbour County would never trail again. The Jaguars led 25-20 at halftime then kicked the margin to double
figures midway in the third quarter with a 13-4 run.

The run was sparked by Devondrick Richardson, the tournament MVP. The Jaguar senior returned after getting poked in the right eye late in the first half, resulting in blood from just inside the eye near the bridge of the nose.

He hit a layup and added his second 3-pointer of the game to spark the run that made it 42-27.

“It is a little blurry right now, but I didn’t let it get to me,” Richardson said of his eye. “I had to play hard for my team whatever time I got back in.”

The Jaguars were never seriously threatened after the run.

Devondrick Richardson led Barbour County with 20 points and finished the four-game tourney with 89 overall to earn MVP.

Lampley had 17 points, Courtavious Dorsey 15 and J.J. Richardson 10.  Dorsey added a team-high eight rebounds.

Thomas paced Eufaula with 26 points points. Lazabian Jackson added 12. Hans Rice had a team-high nine rebounds.

Enterprise 76, Robertsdale 69: The Wildcats and freshman sensation Rhett Harrelson came up with the big plays late to earn the win.

The Bears led most of the second half, though close, and were up 69-66 with 1:30 left when Quenton Evans scored in the lane.

Enterprise’s Tony Gray missed on a shot, but Joe Davis grabbed the offensive rebound and stuck back in to close the gap to one with 1:17 left.

Robertsdale missed at the other end and the Wildcats went running the other way.

Chris Murry passed to Tim Robinson, who quickly dished to an open Harrelson in the left corner. The freshman stroked a 3-pointer, putting Enterprise up 71-69 with 50 seconds left.

“I just happened to get open,” Harrelson said. “We had numbers on them and picked it up and I just shot it.”

“I waved Chris over to come this way (to the bench side) and he passed to Tim and Tim made the good pass to him (Harrelson) for the shot,” Enterprise head coach Albert Weeden said. “Once I saw he had it, I knew he would make it. Big players step up and make big plays and he made it then.”

Enterprise made 5-of-6 free throws in the last 36.7, including 3-of-4 by Harrelson, while Robertsdale misfired on three shots and had a traveling violation.

Harrelson finished with 27 points for EHS, including 11 of 12 at the free-throw line, and had 88 points in four tournament games. Gray earned 19 points and Davis added 12.

Brandon Ellis had 17 points, Dionta Banks 16 and Sid Odom 14 for Robertsdale.

“Coachingwise, I just wanted to hang around because I knew we would make a run as long as we kept attacking,” Weeden said. “They had a couple of guys foul out and that was to our advantage.

“We just wanted to keep it close, especially in a consolation game because you are not going to blow anybody out. Both teams are evenly matched, so you want to keep your exposure.

“You saw what happened at the end of the game. They had a couple of calls that should have probably gone their way and they got mad and lost their composure. Our guys kept their composure.”

All-Tournament Team
Devondrick Richardson, Barbour County (MVP)
Robert Lampley, Barbour County
J.J. Richardson, Barbour County
Courtavious Dorsey, Barbour County
Calvin Thomas, Eufaula
Herbert Brooks, Eufaula
Lazabian Jackson, Eufaula
Josh Jones, Eufaula
Tony Gray, Enterprise
Brandon Hart, Enterprise
Rhett Harrelson, Enterprise
Brandon Ellis, Robertsdale
Quenton Evans, Robertsdale
Nico Johnson, Andalusia
Gavin Respress, Elba
Sportsmanship Award - Andalusia