By Nick Nunn
Staff Writer

Last Saturday, Morgan County High School hosted the SweetSouth basketball classic. Morgan County’s boys and girls varsity teams each played a game during the day; the girls lost to Washington County 38-51, but the boys won their game 64-62 against Alcovy.
Morgan County faced Washington County’s varsity girls’ team, who made it to the championship game in their division last year, for the first game of the day.
Washington County went ahead early, building a 17-4 lead in the first quarter.
The Bulldogs kept up with Washington County in the second quarter; each team gained eight points for a 25-12 score going into halftime.
The girls’ team really shone in the third quarter, scoring 13 points to Washington’s four and closing Washington’s lead to a mere four points.
Although the girls got within four points of tying the game again in the fourth quarter, Washington eventually pulled ahead again, winning the game 51-38.
Sydney Nash and Alexis Brown led the team in scoring, each with 11 points. Nash made three out of five attempted free throw shots.
For the last game of the classic, Morgan County’s varsity boys played against the Alcovy Tigers.
Again, Morgan County fell behind in the first quarter 9-17, and they still trailed by 10 points at halftime 22-32.
Through the third quarter, Alcovy continued to outscore Morgan County adding 20 points to the board to Morgan County’s 17.
However, Morgan County turned the game around in the last eight minutes.
From a 13-point deficit at the beginning of the quarter, the Bulldogs tied Alcovy with a little more than two minutes remaining in the game.
The last minutes were hard fought, Tookie Brown fouled out in the final seconds, but Morgan County was able to build and hold on to a two-point lead to win the game 64-62.
Brown and CJ Turman were the leading scorers for the game with 18 and 19 points, respectively.
In the final quarter, Brown and Turman scored a combined 17 points, 10 of which were made as free throws; Brown made six out six attempted free throws, and Turman made four out of five in the fourth quarter (five for seven overall).
The MCHS basketball teams won’t play again until Dec. 4, when they will take on Cedar Shoals at home. The JV boys will have their first game of the season at 4:30 p.m., the varsity girls will follow at 6 p.m., and the varsity boys will play at 7:30 p.m.
Printed in the November 29, 2012 edition.