By T. Scott Boatright
What started as an old-fashioned Choudrant vs. Simsboro slugfest early got away from the Aggies late as the Tigers roared to a 80-56 win in the District 2-B opener for both teams Tuesday night at the SHS Gym.
Choudrant led 29-28 at the half thanks to a 3-pointer from Carson Cato with 51 seconds remaining in the second quarter.
But the Tigers made a move in the final minutes of the third stanza, going on top by seven twice in the final 2:04 of the period to build a 51-44 advantage heading into the final quarter of play.
Simsboro’s pressure defense and Ahmad Smith’s hot hand took over from there as the Tigers came out on top to open the district season.
The Tigers outscored Simsboro 51-28 in the second half, including a 29-12 point advantage in the final eight minutes of play.
“They did a good job for about three quarters,” Tigers coach Adam Woodach said about the effort put forth by the Aggies. “Coach (Ryan) Smith does a great job over there. That was a battle. That score does not reflect how close that game was. I was sweating bullets. That was a dogfight and that’s a credit to them.
“Choudrant came in ready to play. If you look outside of three or four minutes where the wheels kind of fell off for them a little bit, that was a five-point ballgame. That might have been the closest 25-point game I’ve ever been part of. I was sweating bullets until there was about 2:30 left.”
Early on it was the Aggies who had the hot hand, with Mike Jones pounding in eight points from the paint to help Choudrant build a 17-9 lead by the end of the opening quarter.
Simsboro earned its first lead of the game with 4:58 remaining in the first half on a pair of Tristan Deloney free throws that put the Tigers on top 19-18.
But Cato added his 3-pointer and a pair of free throws in the final 1:16 to give Choudrant the one-point lead it held at intermission.
Slowly but surely, Simsboro’s pressure defense took over in the second half, allowing the Tigers to gradually pull away, building as much as a 22-point lead on a layup and free throw by Itavus Brown with 4:32 remaining.
“We knew coming in they were going to pressure the ball and get after us,” Smith said. “After they picked that up it just got more difficult. Coach (Wollach) is doing a great job with the kind of players he has. He’s maximizing them to their very best and credit to him. But with the pressure lasting 32 minutes, and we’ve seen it on film, they don’t win games until the last three or four minutes.
“A team like that gets a couple of turnovers and hits a couple of shots, especially feeding off the energy in the gym — I feel like that’s what happened tonight. We just had too many turnovers, too many defensive lapses and it kind of came back to bite us and snowballed. But that’s how Simsboro wins games. It’s either close or they blow people out. Tonight was the blowout version.”
Smith led the Tigers with 30 points on the night, including 16 in the final stanza, with seven steals playing a big role in that scoring effort.
“He’s very active defensively,” Woodach said of his eighth-grade standout. “He’s so deceptively long. You don’t realize how long his arms are until suddenly his hands are in the passing lane. For an eighth-grader to have some of the poise he has, it’s pretty impressive.
“In a first district ballgame with that kind of crowd, that speaks volumes about him. We’ve coached him hard and I’m really proud of him tonight.”
Jakaleb Modest added 13 points for the Tigers, who also got 11 from Brown and 10 from Jalen Outley.
Jones led the Aggies with 19 points.
“I think the ball pressure was the defense,” Woodach said. “We’re glad to get the win, but we’ve got to get back to the drawing board because there’s a whole lot of things we need to work on. We’ve got to face them again, and we’ve got to go to their place, so we still have a long way to go.”’
Smith said it was the kind of game he believes his Aggies can learn and improve from in the long run.
“Coming back and getting to experience it here, I have confidence we can come back and learn from it on film,” Smith said. “Just having our guards get out here — this is their first time playing in this environment the whole game long, causing Mike and Lawson to have to really step up — getting it over with here and getting another shot at them at home I hope is going to benefit us.”
Simsboro (18-12, 1-0 in District 2-B) will next play host to Forest on Friday while Choudrant (17-12, 0-1) will play at Downsville on Saturday.
