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42 • Thursday, February 23, 2012
Sports
Pirates Down Spartans to Claim Metro South Basketball Tournament The Pizitz eighth grade boy’s basketball team beat Mountain Brook 32-26 to claim the Metro South championship. Steadman Gully led the Pirates with 15 points and Patrick Morton had 7 points. Jack Kline had 9 points for Mountain Brook. Pizitz ended the season with a 17-1 record. Homewood beat Bumpus 32-25 for 3rd place. Selected to the All Tournament team were: Chris Miller, Homewood; Anthony Jefferson, Bumpus; Jack Kline and Drew Smith, Mountain Brook; Zach Meadows and Steadman Gully, Pizitz and Patrick Morton of Pizitz was named MVP for the tournament.
Regionals, from back cover
sessions tonight where we either had a turnover or took a bad shot,” said tHe“They cove at overton Barker. executed on a couple of possessions betterand than up we did.” $600’s AndVestavia/Mtn those possessions Brook were enough to send Hoover to Jacksonville State. Mountain Brook’s boys punched their ticket to the Northeast Regionals with a 54-37 rout of Pelham the same evening. The Spartans utilized their trademark dominating offense and pressure defense to earn the triumph. Iceland-native Matti 999.9881 Sigurdarson Charles Kessler led the Spartans with 16 points, scorwww.crerealty.com ing five of Mountain Brook’s 10 points in the first quarter to break the game open. Pelham made a move in the second quarter, but the Spartans’ Jeremy Berman, coming off the bench,
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Charles Kessler 999.9881 www.crerealty.com
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Saban, Corso Win TD Club Awards
Members of the Pizitz Middle School Eighth grade basketball team are, front row, left: Alex Robin, Eric McCrory, Parker Hershey, Hampton Dortch, Stephen Kelly, Braxton Arnold, Patrick Morton, Levi Wiggins. Back: Coach Faber, Will Macoy, Steadman Gully, William Snell, Davis Gurosky, Zach Meadows, Anthony Lacy, Sonny Potter, Coach Wyman.
crimped the Panthers’ charge. Berman bagged two three-point baskets and converted a traditional three-point play to help raise Mountain Brook’s halftime margin to 27-19. Mario Stramaglia scored 12 points; Berman finished with 11. “The up-tempo game works for us,” said Sigurdarson after the game. “We like to go up and down the court, press the other team and wear it down. We hope we can do that in Jacksonville.” Mountain Brook advances to the Northeast Regional with a 24-9 record. Hoover’s girls took an easy ride to Jacksonville, rolling over Spain Park by the amazing score of 87-18. The Lady Bucs rolled to a 15-0 lead and stretched the margin to 43-9 at the half. Nicole Tanner led Hoover with 15 points and nine rebounds. Breion Allen scored 14 points. Chardonae Fuqua scored 11 points and picked up three steals. Hoover may have run its record to 27-3, but Bucs’ coach Donnie Quinn wasn’t celebrating the big margin of victory. “I wasn’t watching the score after a while,” he said. “I was watching our girls’ feet, to see how fast they were moving and to see if they were pushing the ball down the court. I was looking for unselfishness. “If they start slowing down, I’ll just throw five new girls in there.”
Spain Park coach Mike Chase was gracious in defeat. “If Hoover doesn’t’ win the state championship, I’ll be surprised,” he said. “Haven’t they played Bob Jones in the finals almost every year? I’ll be shocked if that doesn’t happen again.” The Lady Jaguars completed their season with a 20-13 record. Mountain Brook’s girls kept their season going with a 51-42 win over Thompson. The Lady Spartans’ tenacious defense forced 20 turnovers to help the cause. Annabelle Friedman led Mountain
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Hoover’s Eric Dansby drives to the basket in the Bucs’ game with Spain Park Friday night. Journal photo by Marvin Gentry
Brook with 17 points, including a perfect 10-of-10 from the free throw line. Collier Ogilvie added 11 points. The Lady Spartans shot 76 percent from the free throw line for the game. “I was very concerned before the game,” said Mountain Brook coach Mark Cornelius. “Thompson had an excellent game plan, but we did enough to win. I’m proud of the way our ladies fought and took advantage of what came their way.” The Lady Spartans move on to Jacksonville with a 25-9 record. But the Class 6A powers weren’t the only local schools that saw their seasons extend to the regionals. The Altamont girls earned their way to the Class 2A Northeast Regionals with a 45-27 rout of Ranburne. Yorisha Bryant paced the Lady Knights with 14 points, 10 rebounds and seven steals. Addison Pollard contributed 13 points, with nine coming from three-point shots. Altamont, now 22-4 for the season, will meet North Sand Mountain this week. Shades Mountain Christian’s boys scored a 70-67 win over Talladega County Central to earn a spot in the boys’ Class 1A Central Regional at Alabama State University. Jaylon Sims scored 25 points for the Eagles, and Blake Gardner added 22. Chris Hardrick contributed 10 points for the winning cause. Shades Mountain will face St. Jude on the ASU campus this week.
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Nick Saban, University of Alabama head football coach, is this year’s winner of the Over the Mountain Touchdown Club’s prestigious Bobby Bowden National Collegiate Coach of the Year Award. The Crimson Tide defeated Louisiana State University 21-0 in the 2012 BCS National Championship Game. The win capped a 12-1 season for Alabama and gave the Tide its second BCS title in three seasons. Voting for the award is conducted in part by the National Sportscasters and Sportswriters Association. Voting for the winner is allowed before or after the BCS National Championship game. In addition to Saban, this year’s finalists were head coaches Les Miles of LSU, Mike Gundy of Oklahoma State University and Kevin Sumlin, University of Houston. All four finalists had confirmed their attendance at the Over the Mountain Touchdown Club’s awards banquet had they won. Saban is the award’s first twotime winner. He won in 2009 after his team’s victory against the University of Texas in the BCS National Championship Game. In five seasons with Alabama, Saban has compiled a 59-7 record. His overall record as a head college coach is 152-55-1. He has also led Alabama to four straight 10-win seasons, including a 14-0 national championship season in 2009. Saban is the first coach to win three BCS National Championships. The Over the Mountain Touchdown Club also announced that Lee Corso is the club’s 2012 Lifetime Achievement Award winner. Corso’s career started in 1953 when he played football at Florida State University. Today he is a college football analyst on ESPN’s College GameDay. An awards banquet will be held March 4 at the Cahaba Grand Conference Center for the trophy presentations by Bobby Bowden, former head football coach at Florida State. The Bobby Bowden National Collegiate Coach of the Year Award commemorates Bowden’s legendary coaching career and annually honors excellence in college football coaching. The Over the Mountain Touchdown Club presents the award as a national symbol of recognition for the college football coach who has excelled on the football field while demonstrating perseverance, attitude, integrity and determination, attributes that Bowden has exemplified throughout his coaching career and life. For tickets or more information, visit otmtouchdown.com.