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Richmond Hill teams slump against Camden County
RHHS

Mike Brown, Sports Correspondent

Terrible start, terrible finish. The in-between was okay.

That was the way things went for the Richmond Hill boys in a 50-38 home loss to Camden County Tuesday night in a crucial Region 1-6A game that saw the Wildcats (7-12, 2-5) drop into last-place in the regular season race with one week of play remaining.

One count had the Wildcats failing to score in their first 13 possessions of the game, rally to grab a lead and then were tied with 6:11 to play only to see it all slip away as the offense once again went stagnant.

“You can’t do that in basketball games,” Coach Bill Henderson said of his team’s start and finish. “Not against anybody. We had too many turnovers, a terrible finish and we settled too much on offense.”

Richmond Hill was going for a season sweep of the blue clad Wildcats having won 62-52 at Camden earlier but it suffered through a cold shooting night over an aggressive zone which also made scoring inside a chore.

Josh Scott scored 14 points to lead the Richmond Hill attack and was supported by Amari Jordan with 10.

Camden (8-13, 2-4) got 17 points from Caleb Reed with 12 of them coming in the decisive fourth quarter. He had three treys on the night and made all eight of his fourth quarter free throws as he proved to be unstoppable down the stretch.

“They were pretty similar games,” Henderson said of the two meetings with Camden. “Both had late scoring. We did a good job down there attacking the basket late. They did a good job tonight of taking away the paint.

“Defensively it was not a bad effort. No. 3 (Reed) is a good player. They had 50 points and we were having to foul at the end. Offensively, we’ve got a lot of work to do and we’ve got to get it fixed by Friday.”

The Wildcats are fighting to finish in the top four in the region which would enable them to host a first-round region tournament game. That is certainly within the realm of possibility as there is a logjam behind leaders Colquitt County (13-4, 5-2) and Tift County (15-5, 4-2).

The Wildcats host Tift on Friday and after a non-region game at Glynn County on Saturday play Lowndes County (12-8, 2-3) in back-to-back games next week to close out the regular season. Winning two of the three is imperative if they want to have any chance of avoiding going on the road for the first round of the region tourney.

Camden jumped out to an 11-0 lead and led 11-4 after the first quarter but the Wildcats rallied to close to within 21-18 at the break.

“We told the guys at halftime as bad as that was. we were still in it,” Henderson said. “We responded well in the second quarter and were right in the game.”

The Wildcats trailed by five, 29-24, with two minutes left in the third and seemingly got the lift they needed when Jordan scored six straight points to give his team its first and only lead of the game.

Camden’s Mason Aikens, however, got loose for a 3-pointer with two seconds left in the quarter to put his team up, 32-30, going into the final stanza.

Aikens had nine points, all coming on 3-pointers. For the game Camden hit eight treys while Richmond Hill had one with Scott getting that one in the second quarter.

Scott made a pair of free throws to gain a 34-34 tie but that was it for the Wildcats as Reed took over. The Wildcats guard scored 10 straight points before Scott scored on an inbounds play to snap the Camden run. By that time, it was too late.

The Richmond Hill girls (15-4, 5-2) also had their problems as they had a second quarter drought that proved costly.

The Wildcats were also going for a season sweep and looked to be on their way when they led 13-11 after the first quarter. However, Camden County went on a 16-4 tear in the second quarter to take a lead which it never relinquished.

Down 30-17 in the opening minute of the third quarter Richmond Hill managed to close to within seven points, 3831, on a put back by Cullen McCormick with 6:27 remaining but Camden was able to maintain an eight-to-10-point cushion the rest of the way.

Jada Brown had 22 points for Richmond Hill, Emari Brown added eight and McCormick scored six. The loss left Richmond Hill in a virtual tie for second with Camden (15-4, 4-2). Lowndes County (16-2, 5-0), ranked No. 9 in the state by the AJC, is in first place. The top two finishers get a first-round bye in the region tournament which also means an automatic berth in the state playoffs.

Mike Brown is a sports correspondent with the Bryan County News.

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