Star Classic: Merrill leads Ranburne girls, and Harris leads Faith boys to victory

Dec. 28—HEFLIN — The second day of The Anniston Star Holiday Hoops Classic is underway at Cleburne County High School. This story, scores and schedule will be updated throughout the day.

Boys

Vincent 38, Cleburne County 33: Vincent prevailed in a defensive battle to reach the final for the first time since winning The Star Classic in 2019.

The Yellow Jackets (8-2) will play Central-Clay on Thursday at 7:30 p.m.

"Hopefully, we'll give something better to watch than what they saw here tonight," Vincent coach John Hadder said. Central-Clay "will be tough. I just hope we play better."

Cleburne County made Wednesday's game a struggle with its 1-3-1 zone. Hadder called Vincent's struggles against the zone "like a root canal."

"You have to make some shots," he said. "Our best shooter struggled shooting the ball, and our other guys didn't do any better.

"We struggled from the perimeter, and they made it really tough for us to do anything inside."

In a game where both teams struggled to gain separation, Tray Youngblood came up with two big plays to give Vincent breathing room to start the fourth quarter. His steal and layup then another steal that led to his 3-pointer turned a 27-21 Yellow Jackets lead into a 32-21 edge.

"That was just a credit to coach and the players," Youngblood said. "I had to put my team on my back so we could get this dub (win)."

Youngblood finished with 13 points, one behind team leader Blake Allums' 14.

Hadder called Youngblood "our best defender, He's our best athlete. He's quick and gets his hands on stuff, and he's a senior and a three-year starter. He makes big plays like that."

Cleburne County gave a spirited rally, coming within as close as 33-30. It was 32-28 when the Tigers had three crucial turnovers in a row that Hadder conceded were "unforced."

Cleburne County also lost about 30 seconds trying to foul Vincent into the bonus. The Yellow Jackets made six of 10 free throws in the fourth quarter to lead 38-30.

Cleburne County's Jacob Cavender ended the game with a 3-pointer to cement the final margin. He led the Tigers with 12 points, and Greyson Freeman scored 10.

Vincent hopes to win The Star Classic for the first time since that 2019-20 team, led by Gadsden State signee Malik Hamilton and Snead State signee Ryshad Keith did it.

That team beat defending champion Cherokee County 56-42 in the final and went on to finish 27-3.

"It would mean a lot to us," Youngblood said.

Clay Central 50, Ohatchee 14: Troy Buchanan scored 16 points to lead the Vols back into the Star Classic final for the second year in a row, and they will carry extra motivation this time around.

Cleburne County rallied from a 48-34 deficit in the fourth quarter to force overtime.

"We actually were up by about 19 in the first half and came out flat in the third," Clay Central coach Josh Giddens recalled. "They did a good job of executing their plays and ended up tying it and winning in overtime.

"Any time something like that happens, you want to learn from it. Some of these guys were on that team last year."

The Vols cruised to this year's final, beating Faith Christian 69-35 on Tuesday and Ohatchee on Wednesday. They led 33-7 at halftime and 45-7 going into the third quarter.

Jake Roberson led Ohatchee with nine points.

"I was proud of how we came out, especially our defensive effort," Giddens said. "We struggled a little early offensively, but our defensive intensity, that's the biggest part of what I liked tonight."

Faith Christian 62, Ranburne 45: One hazard of a 10:30 a.m. game on the second day of a three-day holiday tournament is a quiet gym, but Cory Hughes had things to say to his Faith Christian team.

This was not an inner-voice occasion.

"It's terrible," Faith's second-year coach said. "Everybody thinks you're just the meanest person. I talk to my kids at home the same way."

The timeout with the game tied 40-40 worked. Faith went on a 22-3 run to end the game.

"We have five rules of defense, and they were breaking almost every rule of defense, watching the ball, spectating instead of doing what you do when you're playing off-ball defense," Hughes said. "They know better than that, so it was kind of them going to sleep, and I had to kind of wake them up."

Message received.

"There's two things two basketball," junior forward Carson Harris said. "There's love, and, if you do something wrong, you're going to hear it. Whenever you get yelled at, just know that comes out of love.

"If he didn't love us, he wouldn't care what we did, and that's why we made a break, because we know he loves us, we love him and we love the game."

Harris was the man of the hour for Faith. The Oxford transfer, playing in his third varsity game and second varsity start while leading scorer Thomas Curlee is out with an illness, led Faith with 18 points and eight rebounds.

"It feels great, because I had people believing in me the whole time," said Harris, who also had three steals and three assists. "I had zero, zero, four yesterday and then 18, and I just had people believing in me, on and off the court. Coach Cory believed in me. Teammates believed in me."

Hughes saw Harris' breakthrough as a positive to come from Curlee's midseason absence.

"You never want to be without your whole team, but it's really, really good," Hughes said. "It just helps these guys get confidence.

"Carson got shots today that he's not going to get when Thomas is with us, not the volume, at least. To get him comfortable, feet up under him and playing really well gives us a sixth, seventh man coming off the bench who's just tough."

Faith also got 13 points and six rebounds from eighth-grader Conner Richerzhagen, 12 points, five assists and three blocks from Yashua Arevalo and 11 points and 11 rebounds from Eli Robinson.

Jax Stewart led Ranburne with 20 points, and Cody Jackson added eight.

Weaver 48, Woodland 30: What a difference a day made for Weaver.

Keshawn Allen scored 14 points, and Armane Burton added 12 as the Bearcats improved to 6-11 in a consolation game.

The victory came less than 24 hours after the Bearcats opened the tournament with a loss to Cleburne County. The loss on Tuesday was Weaver's first game since Dec. 13.

"Today, you could tell in the first half, we were still in a little bit of a lull, but we woke up in the second half," Weaver coach Beau Winn said. "That's all I can ask for. We've just got to keep putting the pieces of the puzzle together."

The key to Wednesday's game wasn't much of a puzzle. Weaver had to stop 7-foot-1 Woodland senior Christian Beam.

The Bearcats fronted him with backside help. Burton did the lion's share of the fronting.

"It was crazy," Burton said. "I've never played someone like that before.It was a real challenge.

"I just kept trying to get in front of him, kept trying to prevent him from getting the ball, just get out there and try to stop him from getting a high-point game."

Beam finished with a team-high 12 points.

"He's going to get his rebounds and get his points," WInn said. "We just tried to limit him to not taking over the game, and I thought we did a pretty good job."

Girls

Alexandria 68, Cleburne County 32: Cleburne County focused on stopping top scorer Ashley Phillips while winning the 2021 Star Classic final. Wednesday, a more balanced Alexandria team got even.

Jordyn Walker led two Valley Cubs in double figures with 20 points, and Alexandria (7-7) earned a shot at Hiram (Ga.) in Thursday's 6 p.m. final.

The Valley Cubs did it by avenging a 69-36 loss to Cleburne County in last year's final.

Phillips graduated and now plays softball at Jacksonville State. JSU basketball signee Brooklyn McDaniel and 2,000-point scorer Hailey Price led a big Cleburne County senior class.

"They've got a little different team than they had last year," Alexandria coach Craig Kiker said.

Still, beating the Tigers in The Star Classic "felt good," Walker said.

"We needed redemption, and we played hard," she said.

Walker heated up after scoring eight points against Woodland on Tuesday. She hit two 3-pointers.

Her nine steals also helped to generate offense for the Valley Cubs.

"They tried to focus on Jordyn early on, but we did a good job of scoring outside of Jordyn tonight, I thought," Alexandria coach Craig Kiker said. "I thought we did a good job of spreading it around, and then they kind of had to abandon that plan."

Jill Cockrell hit three 3-pointers en route to 12 points.

Faith Brown, Cleburne County's top returnee from last season, led the Tigers with 18 points.

Alexandria turns its attention to Hiram (10-2), a Georgia Class AAAAA team.

"They're kind of Oxfordish to me. They remind me a little bit of Oxford," Kiker said, referring to the reigning Calhoun County champion and Class 6A state runner-up. "They've got two girls that are really good size that handle the ball, so they'll be a matchup problem for us."

Hiram (Ga.) 67, Ohatchee 45: Jorda Crook scored Ohatchee's first 19 points and 21 of the Indians' 26 first-half points en route to a 33-point performance, but a 10-win Georgia AAAAA team pulled away from them in the second half.

When asked to compare Hiram to teams Alabama 3A Ohatchee (11-3) has faced in the Calhoun County Tournament, she cited Oxford and Anniston.

"Their speed," Crook said. "They have a lot of guard power,"

Ohatchee coach Bryant Ginn lauded the Indians' effort.

"To come out with the start we had and get down, like, 18-2, and fight back and get it back to five (31-26), we played well," he said. "We finally started playing well defensively.

"Our biggest problem was we turned the ball over 30 times, and you can't do that, but things to work on. I told them I was glad to play a good team like that and kind of show us where we've got to get to."

Hadiya Kennerly paced Hiram (10-2) with 21 points. Taylor Crawford added 12 and Kalisha Phillips nine.

Ranburne 53, Clay Central 36: Briley Merrill has decided her senior high basketball season will be her last, choosing nursing school at Jacksonville State over basketball offers from Shelton State and Southern Union. She wants her last season to be special.

The all-state swing player who reached 2,000 career points two weeks ago scored a game-high 23 points Wednesday to help Ranburne improve to 13-5 on the season.

Merrill will follow family into the medical field. Her mother is a nurse practitioner and her aunt a nurse. She has nurses and physical therapists among her cousins.

For now, she's helping to care for a young team.

"We've definitely had a good season," she said. "We've lost a couple of games that we shouldn't have lost, but I think we're doing pretty good.

"We're starting three sophomores, so a lot of our problems are more experience things. I couldn't ask for better teammates, playing hard and playing together. Their success is my success, and my success is their success. It's a great team atmosphere."

Ranburne coach Marcus Harrell called Merrill's play this season "phenomenal."

"She's been huge for us," he said. "Any time your best player is also the best person, it helps everything out and makes everything work smoothly. She makes life a lot easier."

Ranburne also got 13 points from Brylee Bailey and 10 from Autumn Phillips.

"Not a perfect game by any stretch of the imagination, but our girls played really hard, dove on the floor and got after it," Harrell said. "We played well on the defensive end for three quarters.

"We've got to protect the ball better than we did in the fourth. We tried to work on a few things."

Maleah Lindsey and Ramyah Billingsley scored 10 points apiece to lead Clay Central.

Vincent 53, Woodland 52: Ke'Aerria Lykes hit three free throws with no time on the clock to lift Vincent over the top after the Yellow Jackets rallied from a 50-41 deficit in the final three minutes.

Woodland's Juliana Lovvorn hit one of two free throws with 35.1 seconds left and one of two with 2.1 seconds left to give Woodland a 53-50 lead. Lykes caught a pass just over midcourt and attempted to heave it to the basket.

Woodland's Saylein Morrison attempted to block it and was called for the foul.

"I tried to get it down the court, and then coach was just like, 'Shoot!'" Lykes said. "I shot, and she fouled me, and I hit my free throws."

Vincent improved to 5-5 a day after falling 56-43 to Cleburne County in their Star Classic opener.

"I missed all of my free throws yesterday, so I was nervous," Lykes said. "I was like, I didn't want to miss them, because my team depended on me, and the last one that they made, the one-and-one, was my fault, because I fouled her."

Lykes finished with 15 points, Ja'Kalynn McGinnis led Vincent with 19, and Trenay Lane added nine.

Vincent coach Tyler Coppock credited his team with not giving up.

"We got down, like, 12 at one point there in the fourth," he said. "We know we have a really good team, and it's just a matter of can we put the pieces together."

He also credited sophomore Mckayla Perkins' spark off the bench.

"We call her the 'Energizer Bunny,'" Coppock said. "She comes off of there and brings us energy.

"We went into a press, and I think she got them to turn the ball over three or four times, and we got buckets out of it, and I think we had 20 rebounds in the fourth. The kids were going hard."

Lovvorn led Woodland with 15 points. Macey Slick added 13, and Leah Williamson contributed 12.

The Anniston Star Holiday Hoops Classic

Tuesday-Thursday

At Cleburne County High School

Tuesday's results

Girls

Ohatchee 71, Ranburne 50

Hiram (Ga.) 77, Clay Central 29

Alexandria 60, Woodland 23

Cleburne County 56, Vincent 43

Boys

Ohatchee 64, Ranburne 62, 3 OT

Clay Central 69, Faith Christian 35

Vincent 69, Woodland 25

Cleburne County 42, Weaver 38

Wednesday's results

Girls

Ranburne 53, Clay Central 36

Vincent 53, Woodland 52

Hiram (Ga.) 67, Ohatchee 45

Alexandria 68, Cleburne County 32

Boys

Faith Christian 62, Ranburne 45

Weaver 48, Woodland 30

Clay Central 50, Ohatchee 14

Vincent 38, Cleburne County 33

Thursday's schedule

Girls

Clay Central vs. Woodland, 9 a.m.

Cleburne County vs. Ohatchee, noon

Ranburne vs. Vincent, 3 p.m.

Championship

Alexandria vs. Hiram (Ga.), 6 p.m.

Boys

Ranburne vs. Woodland, 10:30 a.m.

Cleburne County vs. Ohatchee, 1:30 p.m.

Weaver vs. Faith Christian, 4:30 p.m.

Championship

Central-Clay vs. Vincent, 7:30 p.m.

Sports Writer Joe Medley: 256-236-1551. On Twitter: @jmedley_star.