The Jefferson Dragons wrapped up their holiday break by taking second in the Pickens County Christmas tournament last week.
Up next is a return to region play on Friday, as the Dragons will play host to Banks County.
Tip-off is slated for 8:30 p.m.
Jefferson will then travel to Commerce on Saturday to face off against archrival Commerce in non-region play. Tip-off is scheduled for 6 p.m.
North Paulding
Following a tournament opening win against Kell, the Dragons then moved on to face the North Paulding Wolfpack last Tuesday.
Jefferson took control of what would be a very athletic game early on, moving out to an 18-10 lead by the end of the first quarter. The Wolfpack would close the gap in the second quarter, but Jefferson continued to hold a 30-24 advantage at the half.
The Dragons would continue to hold between a five and 10 point advantage though the third quarter, leading 41-34 going into the fourth.
That’s when North Paulding made a hard charge, making up the difference and tying the game late. With 25 seconds left on the clock, the Wolfpack took their first lead of the game, moving ahead 56-54.
Darius Minor hit a shot with about 12 seconds left on the clock to tie the game 56-56. The Dragons then stopped North Paulding’s last trip down the floor to send the game into overtime.
Jefferson took the lead early in overtime, moving ahead by four to five points, and then maintained that advantage to take the 68-63 victory.
Darius Minor led the Dragons in scoring with 32 points. Shad Borders scored 15 and J.J. Damons scored eight.
“It was one of the best games for Darius Minor in his career, especially in the second half,” said coach Bolling DuBose. “He’s done such a great job of distributing the ball in the last few games. In this game, we weren’t hitting anything so I think he kind of decided if nobody else was going to score, he was.”
Minor scored 13 of the 15 points scored by the Dragons in the fourth quarter, and six of the 12 points scored in overtime.
“I didn’t think offensively we played well, but we did play hard,” DuBose said. “We played well on defense, and that allowed us to stay in the game even though we were not shooting the ball well.”
Dalton
Tuesday’s win put Jefferson into the championship game against the Dalton Catamounts on Wednesday.
The Dragons took an early lead, but the aggressive Dalton team came back to tie the game 21-21. Dalton took control of the game in the next quarter, moving out to a 13-point lead at one point. But
Jefferson came fighting back, cutting the lead to six at the half, 37-31.
Dalton put a lot of pressure on in the third quarter, and took a firm lead, 53-41, by the end of the quarter. In the fourth, Jefferson got a few defensive stops that allowed them to cut the lead from 12 to five points on two occasions. But in the end, it was Dalton coming away with the 75-64 win.
J.J. Damons led the Dragons in scoring with 13 points. Darius Minor and Shad Borders scored 13 each.
For more on this story, see Wednesday's edition of The Jackson Herald.
