AAA - Dunwoody vs Troup County

4SHOT Sports

Championship Games
AAA - Dunwoody vs Troup County
By E.R. Wallace/4SHOT Sports
Mar 5, 2005, 05:30 EST

3-A Boys Championship Shootout

Dunwoody "Wildcats vs Troup County "Tigers"

Macon Centreplex - Macon, GA

Wildcats devour Tigers

Kris Thomas goes up strong for 2 points.

It was on at the Macon Centreplex when the Dunwoody Wildcats took the floor against the Troup County Tigers for all the marbles in Division 3-A.

Dunwoody’s junior forward An’Juan Wilderness and Troup County’s senior forward Tristan Delaney went at each other in a scoring duel that left Delaney on top with a game high 20 points, but Wilderness walking off the court with the trophy and 18 points to lead his team to a 67-61 victory.

Dunwoody went 21-for-41 from the floor, while knocking down 23-of-35 from the free throw line, while Troup was 24-of-31 from the floor and driving home 5-of-12 from the charity stripe.

Troup led the game early with sophomore guard Reginald Billingslea leading the way dropping three pointers off the bat to give his team an 18-16 lead at the end of the first period.

Troup's Reginald Billingslea sets pick for Tobias Bruce.

While the Wildcats played well enough to stick close to the Tigers, the outcome was still the same by the end of the first half with 6-3 senior forward Tobias Bruce taking over dropping in six points in the second period to keep his team ahead 36-31 as the buzzer went off ending the half.

Dunwoody came out in the second half with a renewed spirit as they went on a 17-13 run in the third to pull within one point of Troup on the offensive play of Wilderness and the defensive play of Kris Thomas (6-3 senior) and Darius Johnson (6-3 junior) to close out the third 49-48.

Kierre Jordan ice game for Dunwoody at the charity stripe.

The final period was like the scene from the “O.K. Corral” when Delaney strapped on his hardware to start busting three pointers that looked like they were coming from Interstate 75 after Dunwoody tied the score at 49 in the opening 32 seconds on a 15-footer by De’Andre Bryant.

Both teams started firing at each other with Delaney running out to the parking lot to drop those meteor treys for Troup and Wilderness answering as he started to dominate on the inside bulling his way to the basket for the points.

The game was tied at 53 with 5:30 to go before Wilderness and Thomas went mad to lead the Wildcats on a 12-5 run to take a 65-58 lead with 39 seconds remaining.

The Tigers didn’t lie down as they kept sending Delaney down to fire off those missiles from the top of the arc, but time became a factor and the Tigers had to intentionally foul to stop the clock. The problem there was, that they were fouling the wrong Wildcat in shooting guard Kierre Jordan, who stepped to the line to bust 4-of-5 free throws. When the smoke cleared the Wildcats had prevailed to come away with a state championship.

E.R.’s Picks:

Dunwoody: An’Juan Wilderness(GDP), Kris Thomas(GDP), Kierre Jordan(GDP), Darius Johnson, De’Andre Bryant

Troup County: Tristan Delaney(GDP), Tobias Bruce(GDP), Reginald Billingslea(GDP), Jon Tucker, Apollo Bumbry