By T. Scott Boatright
SIMSBORO — Give the Simsboro High School Tigers and Justin Terrill credit, they knew they were due.
And do it they did Tuesday night as Terrill’s “reign of 3s” made him “King of the Tigers” for the night as Simsboro cruised to a 65-53 District 1-B home win over Doyline inside the SHS gym.
Terrill connected on a career-high eight 3-pointers, and led the Tigers with a career-best 24 points to help keep his team undefeated in district play.
“I just had a bunch of open shots and took it,” Terrill said. “They don’t know me yet. Doyline left me open and I just shot at the basket.”
But Terrill had to be patient. All of his 3-pointers came after halftime.
“I’ve been in a shooting slump the past couple of weeks,” Terrill said. “That’s why I didn’t get the ball much early. But they came to me and I started hitting them and just kept on.”
Wodach said he wasn’t surprised by the effort of his junior sharpshooter.
“Not at all,” Wodach said. “I watch him in practice every single day. I kept telling him it’s about percentages. If you’re a 50% 3-point shooter and you’ve been shooting 15%, well dang, you’re about to shoot 85%, so watch out when it happens.
“Credit to him for staying at it, watching his form and buying in. I’m not surprised at all. We’ve been waiting for it. And this was a good night for it. We needed it in the second half.”
It was the Panthers who struck first as Damario McClendon’s layup put Doyline on the scoreboard first at the 7:22 mark of the opening stanza.
And Doyline led for much of the first quarter before the Tigers battled back to earn a 16-11 advantage heading into the second quarter.
By halftime Simsboro was up by 12 points at 31-19, and the “Justin Terrill Show” hadn’t even started yet.
Terrill hit his first 3-pointer with 4:14 left in the third quarter and hit his second only 14 seconds later.
His fourth try of the contest came with one second left in the third quarter that gave Simsboro a 51-39 advantage heading into the final stanza.
Terrill nailed another pair of back-to-back 3-pointers in the opening minute of the fourth quarter and added two more before leaving the court to a standing ovation.
“We’ve talked about our depth and that’s a huge showing of it,” Wodach said. “What a huge second half by that kid. The excitement from the crowd and our bench showed how excited they were for him.
Doyline came into the contest at 20-4 overall and 2-1 in the district, so the win locked up the District 1-B crown for Simsboro with a perfect 6-0 mark.
“In every game there’s a lesson,” Wodach said. “Tonight it was about how hard it is to beat a team twice. It’s hard to beat a team like that once, and so hard to do twice. That’s why winning a district title is hard.
“They’ve got two really special players (McClendon (who finished with 21 points, and Jay Patterson, who totaled 20). It seemed like every time we would try to pull away they would hit a good shot. So credit to them, and credit to our guys for holding them to 53 points. That’s a good offense. So credit to them, and credit to our guys for locking down defensively.”
Ahmad Smith totaled 14 points in Simsboro’s win while Jalen Outley added 13.
“We were super streaky shooting the ball tonight, but we made up for it with our defense,” Wodach said. “Our defensive energy stayed consistent, and that’s what helped with the win.”
Next up for the Tigers (16-8 overall) will be a home contest against North Caddo on Friday.”
