Senior Jamicah Humphery was presented a game ball for reaching 1,000 points in his high school career. Photos by Kyle Thornton.

Tigers basketball rebounds after last-second setback

By Michael Butler

The Tallassee varsity boys basketball team has had a few unfortunate bounces this season - no pun intended.

The team has played about half as many games as usual, thanks to the coronavirus. Last week, the Tigers were within four seconds of picking up their first area win. Then, there was another misfortune.

With a 54-52 lead, THS missed the front end of a one-and-one from the foul line. Pike Road rebounded, made a quick pass and launched a 25-footer at the buzzer. It went in for a 55-54 victory.

The loss gave the Patriots the season sweep and relegated Tallassee to playing for second in the area. This year; however, the area tournament will have a different format.

Due to COVID-19, area tournaments are not happening in the traditional sense. All teams are not playing at one host site. The higher-seeded teams will be the hosts.

With Tallassee's wins over Beauregard on Thursday 52-43 and Friday 64-40, the Tigers are still in line for one of the home slots. Tallassee plays Brewbaker Tech on Monday and Tuesday in makeup dates, like the back-to-back games vs. the Hornets, again attributed to COVID shuffling.

Seniors (left to right): Denzel Crosby, Jamicah Humphery, Coach Keiven Mixson, Jake Manning, Tae Collins

THS head coach Keiven Mixson is making the most of this odd season.

"I have talked with a bunch of coaches and they have played 25 games," he said. "Here we have played 10. We have established a program here where everyone expects us to win. We expect to win, but when your players sit out for four weeks at home on quarantine it is hard to keep up and recover with teams that haven’t. That’s just the facts."

Mixson still thinks the best is yet to come for his team that has compiled a 5-6 record entering the week.

"We still are playing well. We just need more practice and a few more games to work out the rust. It’s just an unfortunate situation, but it is a great life lesson for our team to teach them to fight through and overcome adversity. With all that has happened I still believe we have a chance to do something special this season."

Schedule/Results
Photos by Kyle Thornton