STARKVILLE — Tuesday night’s matchup between Starkville Academy and East Rankin Academy basketball was a tale of two games.
Things started out promising for the Volunteers in the girls game, sticking with the Patriots in the first half, but a third quarter surge for East Rankin made all the difference in a 55-43 win, Starkville’s first loss of the season.
That Pats’ success quickly went away in the boys game as an unrelenting press defense from the Vols led to fast break after fast break opportunity in a 64-26 blowout victory.
It was a split for Starkville Academy on the night, but there’s plenty to be excited for upcoming for both teams.
“It’s been an interesting start to the season,” boys head coach Brian Merkel said. “We just got our football guys back. They’ve only really practiced one time, so we’re still just scratching the surface on what we can be, but it was nice to bounce back tonight and get a win.”
Starkville Academy’s run in the Midsouth Association of Independent Schools Class 5A football playoffs ended last Friday, and those playing both sports were already out on the court the following day in the Vols’ first loss of the season against Leake Academy.
With new faces joining the squad, the team hasn’t fully gelled, but Tuesday’s win was a major step forward for team chemistry and competition ahead of district.
“We really had to have a bounce-back win from Saturday,” junior Luke McKenzie said. “… I felt much better today after recovering from the weekend. … Using the length that I have in the middle made it harder for them to pass it cross-court and we were able to get steals.”
McKenzie led the Vols (3-1) with 25 points, most of them coming in the lane off Starkville Academy-induced turnovers.
It was absolute mayhem for the Patriots to get any sort of offense going, and the more flustered they got, the more the Vols took advantage to get things into running clock territory.
“I thought they played together,” Merkel said. “The execution part is something that will take a little bit of time. … We knew we had to get it into a full-court game, try to get it up-and-down and create opportunities in transition.”
Where offense was plentiful for the boys team, the Lady Vols (3-1) had trouble executing in the second half of their game against East Rankin.
Down six points at half, the game remained close, but that lead swelled to 15 going into the fourth quarter as Starkville Academy scored just three points in the third quarter.
“I thought we played a pretty good first half,” head coach Colleen Roberts said. “We stopped a lot of what they were trying to do. We just didn’t didn’t have any answers for (Liz Stevens).”
Stevens, a freshman forward for the Lady Pats, had herself a game, finishing with a game-high 28 points. Starkville Academy, despite great work from its own freshman forward Raylee Jones in the first half, got gassed early on and couldn’t keep up.
Jones finished with 12 points in the loss, all scored in the first half, to pace the Vols along with senior Sara Stokes McReynolds. Jones’ emergence as a go-to scorer will be a big storyline to follow as the season progresses.
“She’s doing a great job,” Roberts said. “She’s continuing to improve every game and her teammates are doing a good job of getting her the ball.”
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