Below is the OCR text representation for this newspapers page.

The Braselton News Contact the sports department: Phone: 706-367-5233 Fax: 706-367-9355 brandon@mainstreetnews.com IB Wednesday, December 26, 2007 Girls' Basketball Lady Hawks finish second in Big Orange Qassic MOVING OUT Megan Basile looks to move the ball down the court in a recent game. The Lady Hawks are 11-1 overall after losing the champion ship game in the Big Orange Classic in Alabama last weekend. Photo by Kristi Reed Mill Creek to face Norcross Blue Devils January 2 BY KRISTI REED The Mill Creek High School Lady Hawks played well, but finished second in last week’s Hoover Big Orange Classic. The Lady Hawks (11-1, 5-0) lost the tournament championship game against Alabama perennial powerhouse Hoover High School. The final game of the tournament pitted Alabama’s number one ranked Hoover Lady Buccaneers (17-1) against Georgia’s number two ranked Lady Hawks. The Lady Buccaneers capitalized on missed scoring opportunities by the Hawks to clinch a 66-57 victory in Saturday night’s contest. “Hoover is a very Coming up: good team. It was a WHAT: Mill Creek @ pretty even match up,” Norcross Lady Hawks’ head WHERE: Norcross coac h Ashley Phillips WHEN: Jan. 2@6 said pm. ... We did some things well, but we didn’t finish some of our scoring opportunities. That’s what got us. We had some chances to score and either missed the shots or had a few cases where we just didn’t make a good pass or whatever. Part of it was them, part of it was us,” Phillips said. The Lady Hawks got off to a strong start in the tournament on Thursday with a 68-33 win over the Homewood High School Patriots. “We played really well. We shot really well,” Phillips said. “They were a little bit shorthanded in that game. They only dressed out seven players. I found out later they had a couple of kids who had been injured. It was just a struggle for them. They were just really shorthanded; it was a bit of a lopsided game.” On Friday, Mill Creek advanced to the cham pionship bracket by defeating the Warriors of Thompson High School 79-64. “Thompson was a tough game,” Phillips said. “It was tied at halftime 34-34. They played really well and we played okay the first half.” “We definitely played a lot better in the second half. We started the second half with a 10-0 run. Our full court press really helped us. We used that a lot in the second half.” At one point during the third period, the Lady Hawks held a 17-point lead against the Warriors. Thompson High cut the lead to 12-before the Lady Hawks rallied to a 15-point victory. The Lady Hawks will take a few days off to enjoy the holidays before returning to the hardwood on December 27. Phillips said his team will have five practices to prepare for its next region game against Norcross (3-3, 3-2). Phillips said he expects a difficult game against Norcross. “Norcross is a very physical team. They’re very athletic and they play really hard,” Phillips said. “They’ve got a lot of quickness. It will be a tough game for us. When you go on the road in a region game, it’s always going to be a challenge.” During the break, Phillips hopes to refine the Lady Hawks’ offense and improve his team’s ability to handle increased defensive pressure from opponents. “The biggest focus for us is to work on our half court offense and try to get a little sharper with that,” he said. “When teams play different defensive strategies, you have to be able to adjust to what they are doing. That’s probably the biggest thing we can improve on right now.” The Lady Hawks face the Norcross Blue Devils on January 2 at Norcross. Tipoff is scheduled for 6 p.m. Mill Creek’s next home game will be January 4 against region rival Collins Hill. Tipoff for that game is also scheduled for 6 p.m. Bovs’ Basketball Mill Creek places 5th in Hopkinsville Tournament Hawks resume play in Norcross on January 2 BY KRISTI REED After a heartbreaking overtime loss on Friday, Mill Creek staged a strong recovery to win two consecutive games on the way to a fifth place finish in the Toyota of Hopkinsville Invitational in Hopkinsville, Ken. The Hawks began tournament play on Thursday night against the Pleasure Ridge Park Panthers of Louisville, Ken. The Panthers (9-2) pulled away from the Hawks late in the game to win 64-44. “PRP is a very good basketball team,” Hawks’ head coach Phil Bollier said. “We were only down about six or eight pretty late in the game, but they ended up beating us by 20.” “In the last part of the half, they had some shots that made it look different than it was. We had about a three-minute spell late in the game where they took advan tage of a couple of missed oppor tunities we had and stretched that out,” he said. “They’re a very good basketball team. At the beginning of the sea son, they were rated in the top five in Kentucky,” Bollier said. Travis Bollier scored 16 points against the Panthers. Chase Anderson added nine points. Manu Ogbuehi had seven points and six rebounds. Chris Avery led in assists with six for the night. Friday morning, Mill Creek took on Hopkinsville High School. The Hawks trailed late in the fourth, but Travis Bollier hit two free throws with four seconds of regu lation play remaining to send the game into overtime. The Tigers (8-1) went on to beat the Hawks 64-55. Anderson led the Hawks in scoring against the Tigers with 19 points. Ogbuehi added 11 points and Robbie Harden scored nine. Ogbuehi was the top rebound- Cominq up: WHAT: Mill Creek @ Norcross WHERE: Norcross WHEN: Jan. 2 @7:30 p.m. “They changed the whole nature of that game and hopefully the direction of our program for the rest of this year,” —Mill Creek basketball coach Phil Bollier er with eight boards. Anderson grabbed five. Avery contributed five assists. The Hawks faced off against the Tigers at the Hopkinsville High School gym. The home court advantage proved significant late in the game. Bollier said his team played very well as they took the game into overtime, but ultimate ly the Tigers prevailed. Bollier refused to blame the ref erees for the loss to Hopkinsville, but game stats seem to indicate a bias towards the home town team. In the fourth period, Hopkinsville went to the free throw line 23 times compared to only eight trips for Mill Creek. Hopkinsville went on to win the tournament Saturday evening with a 77-71 victory over University Heights. “You still have to make the big plays,” Bollier said. “A lot of times there is adversity and you just have to battle through it.” The Hawks did just that as they came back that evening and beat Warren Central High School out of Bowling Green, Ken. by a score of 69-65. Anderson led the winning effort with 22 points and three assists. T. Bollier and Zach Landis added twelve points each while Avery scored another ten for the Hawks. Landis had five rebounds and HERE I COME Mill Creek’s Zach Landis (23) brings the ball back down the court during a recent game. Landis scored 12 points, and five rebounds and seven assists during a tournament game against Kentucky’s Warren Central in the Toyota of Hopkinsville Christmas Invitational last week. Mill Creek went on to defeat Warren Central 69-65. Photo by Kristi Reed seven assists and T. Bollier made four rebounds and three assists. “[Warren Central] has got a very strong tradition in Kentucky,” Bollier said. “They have won the state championship two out of the last four years.” The Hawks led the Dragons 29-12 in the first period. Warren Central rallied and took the lead before Mill Creek recovered momentum to secure the 69-65 victory. On Saturday, the Hawks faced in-state competition from the Colquitt County Packers of Moultrie, Ga. “We started off a little bit slow, but then we played three quar ters of the best basketball we’ve played,” Bollier said. “The first quarter, it looked like we had not gotten enough sleep, played a bunch of basketball, ate too much food and came in pretty flat. “We called a time out and we told our kids that what we are trying to do is be more consistent. We told them it’s time for us to step up and play,” he said. The Hawks responded by out- scoring the Packers 26-7 in the second period on the way to a 76-54 victory. “They changed the whole nature of that game and hopefully the direction of our program for the rest of this year,” Bollier said. Anderson continued an out standing tournament performance with 27 points and 9 rebounds. T. Bollier finished strong as well with 16 points, four rebounds and five assists. Avery added 16 points and five assists in the win ning effort. Bollier said the tournament was an important experience for his team. “Walking out of the tourna ment, we felt it was very valu able in the main two areas we wanted to improve on: team unity and team toughness,” Bollier said. “We want to be mentally and physically tougher and be more united in what we do. I think we accomplished that. We’re looking forward to taking some time off and then coming back in January and going into battle again.” The Hawks resume practices on December 27. Mill Creek will hold five practices before playing its next game against region oppo nent Norcross. As Mill Creek prepares to face the Blue Devils, controlling the ball and avoiding turnovers will be the primary focus. “We just need to take care of the basketball,” Bollier said. “[Norcross] is a really powerful team. What they’ve done is press people and people have had a lot of trouble from the pressure. They take advantage of turnovers and make them easy scoring oppor tunities. We want to be able to be tough with the basketball,” he said. Mill Creek will play the Blue Devils at Norcross on January 2. Tipoff is set for 7:30 p.m. The next home game will be on January 4 when the Hawks face Collins Hill. Game time is sched uled for 7:30 p.m.