Leggett offense on display

Gavin Nichols is challenged by two Hornets at the rim.

By Brian Besch
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What started as a competitive game quickly became a victorious certainty for the home team, as the Leggett Pirates defeated Goodrich 100-43 Friday in Dudley Dickens Gym.

A tight first period that saw Goodrich share the ball and take good shots turned ugly for the remainder. Leggett turned up the intensity and received many free possessions for the effort. The Pirates were up 11-10 after eight minutes of play, but scored 30, 36 and 23 over the final three quarters for the blowout.

“We still didn’t play like I wanted them to,” Leggett coach Ra’Shod Jefferson said. “We are not pressuring the ball and kind of laid back a little bit. In the first quarter, I think we just came out with a big head. This is our third time playing each other this year. We played each other twice in the Colmesneil tournament. I told them that we have to play our game, and everyone that we play is going to have talent on their team. I told them I would call all my time outs to run sprints if they don’t play ball. We started picking it up a little bit.”

The coach said he liked the teamwork and passing his group showed Friday.

“Usually we have one scoring here or one scoring there. I want all five scoring and using our teammates.”

A large portion of the Leggett scoring came from Jace Railey with 25, Joshua Perkins with 24, and Gavin Nichols 23. Amareion Bookman led the Hornets with 25 points, Marquis Robinson had seven and Joel Resendez six.

Leggett is now 3-0 and will head to Zavalla on Tuesday, then return home for what could be a matchup of the district’s top two teams versus Brookeland in Dickens Gym.

“Brookeland is the challenge; they are 3-0 right now, as well,” Jefferson said.

Goodrich has struggled this season, but is improving. Multiple freshmen are getting their first varsity experience and adjusting to the speed of the game.

“We played a decent quarter and that was it,” Hornet coach Lester King said. “We are standing around. What gets me is that we are not shooting the basketball, we are not rebounding, so it’s not that hard to get back. We talk about that every day, about getting back and playing defense. Then, we’ve got people pouting instead of going in and trying to correct their mistakes. We’ll cure that next week. It’s just terrible when you know you can play with somebody and then all the sudden go to la-la land. Until we start rebounding and playing defense, it’s going to be a long night. I told them that they have to find their pride.”

The Hornets are 0-3 in district with High Island coming to Polk County Tuesday.

“We’re catching the basketball and not looking at the basket. We’re just throwing it away,” King said. “We talk every day about how your first look is at your basket. It is also killing us not having ball handlers like I used to have. Ball handling is killing me. We got to the rim a lot in the first half, but we aren’t scoring.”