By Shannon Fagan, WEIS Sports Director
CENTRE – The Cherokee County Warriors played their most complete basketball game of the 2023-24 season on Friday night against rival Hokes Bluff, but it still wasn’t enough to get them over the hump and into the win column.
After being down by as many as 14 points in the first half, the Warriors battled back before halftime and in the second half to make a game of it. They managed to cut their deficit to a single point following a steal and basket by junior forward Jayquan Diamond with 18.7 seconds to go in the game.
A pair of free throws by Hokes Bluff put the Eagles back up by three with 10 seconds remaining, but Warrior senior shooting guard Eli Martin had a chance to force overtime when he was fouled on a 3-point shot with just 0.6 seconds left on the clock.
Martin made the first two shots, but his third rimmed out, allowing Hokes Bluff to escape with a 48-47 victory and keep the Warriors winless at 0-10.
“To me, that was the most we’ve played like a team all year,” Cherokee County head coach Caleb Hays said. “Although it’s been extremely frustrating for everyone involved, where our record is, the kids are still unbelievably bought in to what we’re trying to teach, doing the right things and making the right plays.”
Two things proved costly for Cherokee County on the court Friday night. Hokes Bluff opened up a 19-9 edge at the end of the first quarter, forcing the Warriors to play catch-up all night.
The second was free-throw shooting. The Warriors shot just 47-percent from the charity stripe (8-of-17).
“Coming out of the gate we’ve got to be better in the first quarter. After that, I think we won the next three.” Hays said. “There’s been some times where we’ve gotten down by a lot. At Alexandria, the first quarter was just terrible. The second, third and fourth, we fought and we played like we know how to play. It’s just getting them to go for four quarters and making sure we’ve got a game plan in that’s going to allow them to do what they’re best at.
“Really, the only downside to this game was just our overall free throws. We’ve got to get better at that.”
Diamond led the Warriors with 13 points. Martin, who’s been battling an ankle injury, managed 12 points. Reid Jacoway and Jacob Cornejo netted nine and six points respectively.
Hokes Bluff also had its struggles from the free-throw line. The Eagles were 7-of-16 from the line, including just 2-of-4 in the final 15 seconds to give the Warriors life.
But the Eagles managed to compensate behind three 3-pointers by Landon Davenport and two treys by Drew McCarver. McCarver led Hokes Bluff with 14 points. Davenport delivered nine points.
Ashton Moody managed 10 points. Noah Johnson and Bryce Whitaker finished with six and five points respectively for the Eagles.
Cherokee County gets another chance to earn its first win of the season with a trip to Attalla to face area rival Etowah on Saturday evening.
“These guys are going to fight,” Hays said. “They’ve been beaten down a little bit this year, and it would be real easy in this situation to just shut down and (think) the game’s not fun anymore, but they played their tails off tonight.
“Our guys were more aggressive. They were smarter with the basketball. They talked better. Our bench energy was better. We’re just trying to go 1-0 every night, and when it doesn’t turn out our way, we’ll live with it, but we feel like we left it all on the court (Friday night).”