After finishing as the No. 4 seed in last week’s South AA Tournament, the Newton County Academy Generals found themselves in a tough spot this week with North AA champion Greenville St. Joseph.
But that didn’t phase the Generals any.
The Generals gave the Irish all they wanted before Greenville pulled away late and took a 34-32 win to end NCA’s season.
As a matter of fact, the Generals had a five-point lead with two minutes left in the game before turnovers gave the Irish life.
“I knew they were good,” NCA coach Tanner Smith said. “They have one really good player and we held him to 15 points and that’s the lowest he has scored all year. It was back and forth the entire game. But we ended up making some careless mistakes at the end that hurt us.”
Smith said he has seen his team improve all year, but especially after Christmas. The Generals are losing four senior starters off this year’s squad, including Ethan McDill, Luke Alexander, Dalton Sibly and Logan Little.
“We have gotten a lot better in the last month,” Smith said. “We won or lost like 10 games by two points or less in the last month. We have played some close games. But after Christmas, we came together and became a more efficient team, that’s for sure.”
Against Greenville, the Irish led 10-6 at the end of the first but NCA outscored them 13-10 in the third as St. Joe led 20-19 at the half. Greenville outscored NCA 6-4 in the third to take a 26-23 lead into the fourth. NCA outscored Greenville 9-8 in the fourth for the final margin.
Kemp Alderman, an Ole Miss commit in baseball, led NCA with 10 points and 13 rebounds. Ethan Mcdill had eight points and 11 rebounds as well.
