In a Thursday night basketball game between the Jefferson Davis Community College Warhawks and the Marion Military Tigers, one winning streak continued and one came to an end.
The Warhawks of Brewton spoiled to return of former W.S. Neal boys basketball head coach and current Marion Military coach Tommy Suitts’ (Suitts coached WSN from 2007-2008) return to the Brewton area Thursday as JDCC defeated Marion 73-68. The win for the Warhawks improved JDCC to 6-3 and improved their winning streak to six straight wins after starting 0-3. Marion’s loss dropped the Tigers to 8-2 and ended their seven game winning streak.
“Honestly I think this is the biggest win of all our wins so far,” JDCC head coach Allen Gainer said. “They (MMI) were 8-1 and coach Suitts does such a tremendous job. Everybody up until now had what I called, and I told the players this, had been a ‘yeah, but’ win. We beat Pensacola— yeah, but their point guard was hurt. We beat Miami—yeah, but they had a 10-hour drive. Everyone had something they could point to. This is the first time everyone had everybody and everything was like it should be and we beat a good and an extremely well coached team.”
Gainer said coach Suitts gets his team to play so hard.
“No. 23 for them is unbelievable. He is so good,” Gainer said. “Brandon Scott played the best game for us this year that he has played. He did a great job of getting to the basket. They really had no answer for Brandon. We made a lot of crucial rebounds down the stretch and we made more exciting than it needed to be. We were up 12 points with four minutes to go and I thought we had them then the next thing I know, we are up by three. We did what we had to. I think that was the best win of the bunch. We just have to do something with Wallace Hanceville (today).”
Suitts said he thought JD played well.
“They played well and executed hard. It was a good game,” he said. “Like all close games, whoever is ahead with two or three minutes left can just run the court and time and make you foul. You just have to hang on and win. We just could never get them stopped. I thought it was a good game and both teams played well.”
In a back-and-forth first half, JDCC outscored Marion 33-31. The biggest lead in the half came at the 6:00 mark when JDCC held an eight-point lead.
Marion would close the gap with a 6-0 run to hold a 31-30 lead with 2:16 left before the Warhawks hit a 3-pointer with 1:43 left in the half to claim the two-point halftime lead.
In the second half, JDCC would outscore Marion 40-37 to get the win by five points.
Marion started the half on a 3-0 run to hold a 34-33 lead at the 17:53 mark.
With JDCC leading 48-47 with 11:42 left in the game, the Warhawks would go on a 6-0 run and later a 7-0 run to lead by 12 points, 61-49, with 6:17 left in the game.
Marion would twice cut the lead to three points, with 2:08 left in the game and with 38.1 seconds left, but the Warhawks would pull out the win by five.
Scott led JDCC in the win with 23 points and was joined in double figures by Larel Jackson’s 15 points and Turmonte Ragland’s 13.
Gabriel Rice added eight points and Rodney Scott had five. D.J. Jackson, Sherman Presswood and R.J. Bowers all had three points each.
For MMI, David Murray led with 22 points and Dominique Ellis had 19. Sherman Smith had seven points and Tevin Moore and Raymond Gee had six points each along with Eric Russell. Henry Baker chipped in two points for MMI in the loss.
JDCC was 12-for-18 from the free throw line including 8-for-12 in the final 4:52 of the game. JDCC was 4-for-6 in the first half. The Tigers shot 7-for-11 in the game going 2-for-3 in the first half and 5-for-8 in the second.
For JDCC, Scott finished with a double-double as he had 10 rebounds. Larel Jackson led with five assists and Rice had two blocks. Scott also led with three steals.
Murray finished with a double-double for MMI as he had 12 rebounds in the loss and Smith finished with six assists and four steals.
JDCC will be back in action on the road Saturday at Wallace Hanceville. Game time is set for 4 p.m. Marion will be at home Saturday against LBW at 7 p.m.