Rochelle — Four days after seeing their dream of a state football championship shattered, Wilcox High’s Patriots launched their bid for a state basketball title with a 66-63 Tuesday night win over Coffee County.

That triumph salvaged a split of a doubleheader as earlier in the evening the Lady Trojans had handed the Lady Patriots what was definitely their worst loss in 15 years and possibly their worst setback ever, 88-15.

Both Wilcox teams will be back in action twice this weekend, traveling to Hawkinsville on Friday and Echols County (Statenville) on Saturday for twin bills tipping off at 6 p.m.

Patriots 66, Trojans 63

With just five hours of practice under their belts due to the school’s late finish on the gridiron where they made it to the semifinals, the Patriots naturally got off to a slow start.

But after finding itself trailing 17-9 after a quarter and 41-27 at halftime, Wilcox launched what would be a successful rally with a 15-8 third period edge that brought it to within 49-42.

Led by the trio of Calvin Rawls, Makail Grace and Jonathan Howard who combined for 22 of the team’s 24 points in the final stanza, the Class A hosts caught and passed their Class AAAAAA guests.

“Considering we’d only had two days of work before taking the floor, I thought we did well,” coach George Kennedy said. “We did have the first quarter jitters, but as the game progressed we loosened up and did OK.

“It’s still going to take us a little while to knock the rust off and get our running legs under us but I think we’ll get there. To do so, though, we’re going to have to get help off the bench while using at least 8-9 guys all of whom must play hard and make contributions in one way or another.”

Grace, Rawls and Johnny Dwight all wound up with double-digit points totals for the winners, scoring 24, 19 and 12 points, respectively. D.J. Wiley canned 18 and Dikembe Deberry deposited 10 for the losers.



Score by Quarters

Coffee County 17-24-8-14 — 63

Wilcox County 9-18-15-24 — 66

Scoring

   Coffee County (63) — Ken White 2, Kevi Coley 2, Brandon Roe 9, Kavious Tomlin 2, Tyree Paulk 5, Jay Lott 2, C.J. Johnson 4, Dikembe Deberry 10, Rashad Thomas 4, Kashawn Evans 2, D.J. Wiley 18, Ken Walker 3.

   Team totals: field goals 28; free throws 6 of 9 (66.7%); fouls 19; 3-pointers — Paulk 1; fouled out — none.



   Wilcox County (66) — Larry Lindsey, Recardo Howard, Quinn Tisdol 4, Makail Grace 24, Calvin Rawls 19, Michael Everson, Larry Munford, A.J. Benjamin, Jonathan Howard 7, Johnny Dwight 12.

   Team totals: field goals 24; free throws 14 of 23 (60.9%); fouls 14; 3-pointers — Grace 2, Rawls 2; fouled out — none.

Coffee 88, Wilcox 15

Facing a major rebuilding season, the youthful Lady Patriot squad that has just one senior and junior on it fell out of contention from the start.

By the first period’s end, the Wilcox girls were staring at an 18-1 deficit that would only continue to mount drastically. By halftime, the home team was down by 35 at 40-5. At the three-quarter mark, they trailed by 58 at 68-10 and it continued to get worse the rest of the way.

“They hurt us badly with their press as our extremely young girls had trouble all night getting the ball up the court,” said coach Santita Coon after a debut against a Lady Trojans team making its sixth start of the season.

“The one positive we can take out of a loss like this was that we never hung our heads. Despite the one-sided score, we played to the final buzzer and the girls are to be commended for that.”

Erica Jackson’s eight points were the most a Lady Patriot could manage. Each member of the trio of A’tyanna Caulden with 24 points, Anterria Fields with 18 and Sonya Franklin, 16, individually outscored the Wilcox team.



Score by Quarters

Coffee County 18-22-20-20 — 88

Wilcox County 1-4-5-5- — 15

Scoring

   Coffee County (88) — A’tyanna Caulden 24, Tania Fletcher 4, Ke’yara Kitchens 9, Ashley Paulk 9, Sonya Franklin 16, Dajah Bailey 8, Anterria Fields 18.

   Team totals: field goals 39; free throws 6 of 14 (42.9%); fouls 12; 3-pointers —  Fields 4; fouled out — none.



   Wilcox County (15) — Shantia Lawson, Lindsey Ponder 2, Dajsia Daniels 2, Tyonna Wright, Kadada Martin 3, Jada Curry, Erica Jackson 8, PaKayla Mahoganey, Ciara Brown, Miracle Jones.

   Team totals: field goals 5; free throws 3 of 8 (37.5%); fouls 12; 3-pointers —Martin 1, Jackson 1; fouled out — none.