A trip to MA is met without about as much anticipation as a trip to the dentist. It seems accommodations for visiting fans are the lowest of priorities. The bleachers were an accident waiting to happen without a single handrail in any of the three sections of seating. Tack on two special events during the games that lengthened the time considerably and it was a swell night at the gym.
Luckily, the Lady Eagles (12-11) made it more bearable as they avenged an earlier loss to MA with a 47-39 victory. In the previous meeting it took over eighteen minutes for ACA to score their first bucket, but on Friday night they turned the trick in just twenty-two seconds. Jaide Newkirk scored on a feed from Katelyn Sutton for the first points of the contest. Sutton nailed a three late in the period to give the visiting Eagles a 15-7 lead after one. The point total for the first quarter surpassed the amount of the entire previous game against MA. Sutton opened the second with another long distance dedication to stretch the lead to 18-7 just seconds into the quarter. The junior point guard has looked fantastic the past two nights as she paced the team with 15 points in the first half. ACA led 26-15 at intermission. Despite the never ending moaning and complaining about the lack of calls his team was getting, MA only had two more fouls called against them as compared to ACA. At the end of the night, MA had twenty-five fouls called on them, while ACA had twenty-three.
MA increased the defensive pressure in the second half and tried to make a run at the visiting Eagles. Midway through the quarter they cut the lead to three, 27-24, but another Sutton three and a free throw from Jaide Newkirk stretched the lead back to seven. Alabama Christian led 41-31 after three. The fourth quarter was not a thing of beauty. Through the first five minutes of the period, MA scored four points to cut the lead to 41-35 as ACA missed all six of their shots and turned the ball over eight times. Izzy Warrick righted the ship as the MA press could not contain her and watched her score ACA’s final six points of the evening in the 47-39 win.
Katelyn Sutton’s 25 points led the team to go along with six rebounds. Izzy Warrick finished the night with 10 points, five rebounds, and three assists followed by Campbell Hammett with seven points, six boards, and three steals. Addison Smith led the team with nine rebounds, all in the second half.
The boys contest was much closer than the first meeting although ACA (17-7) never led during the game. Sam Davidson made a three to tie the score, 5-5, but MA scored the next ten points to lead 15-5. All night long, MA would build the lead and Alabama Christian would respond and cut into the deficit. The first period ended with the home team leading 22-14. Back to back treys by Mac Moorer and Tyree Saadiq early in the second cut the lead to two points, 22-24. MA answered with a 7-0 run and would eventually lead 33-24 at the break.
ACA would cut the lead to seven on two occasions in the third period, but it was as close as they would get. The squad never stopped and competed until the very end as they scored the last seven points of the contest for the final margin of 50-59.
Tyree Saadiq led the offense with 22 points with six assists. Mac Moorer finished with eleven points while Darius Gardner had eight points with nine boards. AC Walters tied Gardner with a team high nine rebounds.
Alabama Christian wraps up the regular season against LAMP on Tuesday, January 30th.