By Staff
From Staff Reports/The Meridian star
Dec. 2, 2001
Basketball tournaments seem to be a way of life in Newton County these days.
Just two days after the ECCC Central Mississippi Classic came to a close, another tourney featuring six teams will begin at Newton County Academy.
NCA will host its Christmas Invitational Tournament on Monday, Tuesday and Thursday. The event, which is actually sort of a preview of the MPSA 3-A Tournament, features four games on each day.
Monday's girls' games have Sylva-Bay taking on Heidelberg at 4 p.m. and Newton facing Wayne at 7. The boys' games that day have Newton playing Sylva-Bay at 5:30 and Heidelberg taking on Wayne at 8:30. Central and Kemper got a bye in the boys' and girls' brackets.
Tuesday's action on the girls side of things has Kemper facing the Heidelberg-SBA winner at 4 p.m. and Central taking on the Newton-Wayne winner at 7 p.m.
The boys games for that night have Central taking on the Newton-SBA winner at 5:30 and Kemper playing the Heidelberg-Wayne winner at 8:30.
The boys consolation game is set for 5:30 on Thursday, with the title game tipping off at 8:30. The girls consolation game is at 4 p.m. on Thursday, with the championship being decided at 7 p.m.
Austin Bishop
Moving on to the next level
Wayne County High School senior swing player Natalie Jordan has signed an NCAA letter of intent to play basketball at the Mississippi University for Women next season for head coach Glenn Schmidt.
The 5-foot-10 Jordan has led the Lady War Eagles to a 7-1 record going into Saturday night's game with Meridian High School, and is averaging over 18 points per game for coach gina Skelton's squad.
Other early signees landed by MUW were Rachel Coleman of Columbus High School, Heather harris of Amory High School and Lanie Griffin, a guard from Vanderbilt Catholic High School from Houma, La.
Austin Bishop
You can't go home, or can you?
Tristan Howell was a standout basketball player during his high school days at Leake Academy. He's now the boys' basketball coach at Lamar School.
Howell took his Raiders to Madden for their season opener on Nov. 27 and suffered an 83-56 beating by his former coach Phil Shepard.
Leake improved to 6-0 with the win.
Meanwhile, Ken McMullan took his Nanih Waiya Lady Warriors to the East Central Community College Central Mississippi Classic at Decatur last week.
After losing to Neshoba Central in the first round at the ECCC gym, the Nanih Waiya girls played their second contest in the old Decatur High School gym where McMullan spent quite a bit of his time a few years back.
The Lady Warriors defeated Union 46-36 to improve to 4-1 after going 5-15 last season.
Marty Stamper
Don't go crying to mama
It isn't all that unusual to have brother coaching against brother in high school sports, but the recent Philadelphia-Carthage girls' basketball game paired brother against sister.
Jason Gentry's Lady Tornadoes of Philadelphia claimed a 64-41 victory over younger sister Kim Gentry Dunn's Lady Tigers of Carthage.
Their father, former Philadelphia chief of police Arden Gentry, was available to keep peace in the family.
To make matters even more interesting, Jason coached at Carthage last year.
Marty Stamper
Itching to hit the court
Wayne Academy head boys basketball coach Ronnie Crane has been waiting patiently for his team's season to start.
The Jags haven't played a basketball game yet, and won't until Monday when they face Heidelberg Academy at 8:30 in the NCA Christmas Tournament.
Crane, who coached at Buckatunna for 13 years and Wayne County for two, hasn't coached a high school basketball game since the 1993-94 season.
He coached the Buckatunna boys for all 13 years before the school consolidated with Waynesboro Central, Clara and Beat Four to become Wayne County High School. He also coached the girls for six years, with the Lady Buccs going to the state tournament three consecutive years. The Wayne County girls went to South State his last year at the helm there.
Crane said he has had five players to work with at Wayne, but expects six more to come out since football season ended on Saturday.
Austin Bishop
Louisville not hurting
Louisville made it to the third round of the 4A football playoffs but that success hasn't hampered the basketball team. The Wildcats are off to a 6-1 start following Tuesday night's win against Winona.
Louisville owns impressive wins over West Point (89-34) and Wingfield (54-53). The lone loss was against Neshoba Central 54-53.
On Friday, the team takes on the Starkville Yellow Jackets. On Dec. 6-8 will be the Wildcat Classic in Louisville.
Jeff Byrd