'Together', Cedar Grove advances to quarterfinals with win over Luella
On Saturday, the Cedar Grove Saints advanced to the Georgia High School Association basketball state championship tournament Class 3A quarterfinals with their 56-50 win over the Luella Lions. The win marked the second time, in three seasons, the Saints have reached the third round of the tournament as well as their third win of the season over region rival, Luella.
"Since we've seen them a few times, we knew that that they would be overly aggressive so we knew to stay poised," Cedar Grove head coach, Camden Terry, said of adjustments in preparation of facing a Luella team, very familiar with the Saints and eager to avoid elimination by their region foe.
"Another main adjustment," for the Saints would be to limit the scoring of Luella's Jordan Smith, the senior forward, who averaged 16 points per game during the regular season. "A really, really good, tough player being highly recruited," Terry said of Smith, who Cedar Grove successfully held to 8 points on Saturday, with their efforts to "limit" the Lions' offense.
In the opening quarter, the Saints managed to hold Smith to 2 points while offensively, Cedar Grove's Emanuel Green, who finished with 22 points, and Javonte Floyd, who added 14 points, combined for 8 of the Saints 10 points in the opening period. In the second quarter, Green would lead the way with 8 points as Cedar Grove would outscore Luella 12-5 to take a 22-12 lead into the locker room at halftime.
As the third quarter got underway, Smith, finished with 8 points, would be looking for his first points since the first quarter, however, Jakye Benjamin would give the Lions the offensive spark they were in need of as 11 of his 14 points would come in the period and Luella was only outscored by one point by Cedar Grove, however still trailed by 11 points.
Heading into the fourth quarter trailing 39-28, the Lions' offense came together forcing a late rally to get within four points of the Saints with less than 30 seconds to go in the game, however a successful break of the Lions' press would lead to, two of Floyd's points after a slam dunk to give Cedar Grove a 56-50 lead with 14 seconds remaining in the game.
"We felt like we had a good chance of doing it," Terry said of the Saints win, however "doing it together," would have to be the way the Saints would accomplish the win. "No matter who scored, no matter if there were flashy plays, it didn't matter as long as we came out victorious," Terry said after the win. Cedar Grove will now face Baldwin on Wednesday in the quarterfinals.
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