AHSAA AREA TOURNEYS: Montgomery Academy wallops Trinity
MA’s Skyler Stovall attempts to drive past Trinity’s Tillman Clements in Wednesday’s area final. (Tim Gayle)
By TIM GAYLE
The Trinity Wildcats got three 3-pointers in a 15-point first quarter in their 3A Area 6 Tournament championship game against Montgomery Academy on Wednesday.
It wasn’t nearly enough.
The Eagles scored 22 points in the first quarter and 17 more in the second quarter to take a surprising 13-point lead at the half on the way to a 72-47 win at Joe Mooty Court.
“If you go back and look at our last four or five games, we’ve started fairly quickly, especially on offense,”Montgomery Academy coach Jeremy Arant said. “It’s something we’ve been working on all season and hopefully it’s finally paying off for us a little bit.”
Seth Edwards scored 10 of his 12 points in the first quarter and Skyler Stovall added eight to help the Eagles to a quick lead. Meanwhile, on the defensive end of the court, Montgomery Academy held forward John Morris to one basket in the paint.
“Really, John and Cayson (Keller) are kind of the strength of their team,” Arant said. “John is really good inside, offensive rebounds really well, really gets position well. Every time we play them, that’s a point of interest -- defending the paint and trying to use our speed and athleticism on the perimeter to bother their guards a little bit. Fortunately, from a size standpoint, we’re one of the few teams that can match up with John and Cayson. We can throw five or six guys that are 6-3 and taller at those guys.”
Trinity coach Matt Arrighi praised the Eagles for their performance in the third meeting between the two teams this season.
“I want to give credit to Montgomery Academy, they shot the ball really well,” Arrighi said. “I thought, for the third consecutive time, they were the more aggressive team, particularly on offense. They were putting pressure on us to get to the rim and it kind of knocked us back on our heels early when they started hitting shots. I didn’t feel like we responded very well. I thought we panicked a little bit and got out of our game plan and it was hard to recover.
“I’m disappointed, but at the end of the day, sometimes a team just plays a lot better than you and they have a great night.”
Stovall led Montgomery Academy with 23 points, six rebounds, three assists and five steals, followed by Edwards with 12 points, 10 rebounds, three assists and three blocked shots, DJ Vinson with 11 points, 13 rebounds and a blocked shot and Brew Welch with eight points, five rebounds and seven assists.
Welch was chosen as the tournament’s most valuable player.
“He played really well,” Arant said. “He and Skyler played well both games. Brewer got hot (in the opening round with eight 3’s) and just the way he distributed the ball for us in both games was really big for us. He really defended well, too.”
Keller led Trinity with 12 points, followed by Morris with nine.
Joining Welch on the all-tournament team were teammates Skyler Stovall and Seth Edwards, Trinity’s Morris and Keller, Tabor Offord of St. James and Tyree Saadiq of Alabama Christian.
Montgomery Academy (23-7) will play the loser of Thursday’s area tournament game between Monroe County and Excel in the sub-regional round on Saturday at 6 p.m. Trinity (16-9) will travel to play the winner on Saturday at 6 p.m.
“We’ve had a couple of times this year where we've gotten hit in the mouth and beaten pretty bad,” Arrighi said. “The most recent time, we responded well in the next game and I expect our guys to do that again.”