We will have Wyatt Smith coming in with Championship Game write-ups later on here at the site tonight, and we just wanted to get the ball rolling again, with our Day Three Observations from the HAECO Tournament, and we will list a few/some now, and be adding others later on…
Just a great final day/night of the tournament and everyone kept on saying, that the games had been blowouts, but not tonight, with the Page boys winning by one point on a last second shot and then Ragsdale rallying to take over and top the NWG girls by five points and last, but not least, it was that men’s final in Overtime, with the Northwest Guilford Vikings dethroning the seven-time champions, the Greensboro Day School Bengals….
The game-winning bucket in OT for Brandon Thomas, from NWG, the game-winning shot by Nate Duggins, from Page High School, as the Pirates defeated Smith in a blistering-pace second half and then there was Ragsadale’s KD Walker being helped off the court by her coaches, as she was injured and couldn’t walk and then Walker walks back out there, and finishes the game with grit and determination for the RHS Tigers…..
Brandon Thomas, Nate Duggins, KD Walker, those kids really get got my attention tonight, as I was observing the last day of HAECO….
Class acts in NWG boys coach Lee Reavis and GDS boys coach and AD, Freddy Johnson and smacked a low-five at the end of the NWG OT win….
Ragsdale AD Brian Herndon talked with us after his team’s win and we heard from Ragsdale head coach Ben Bradford and both are class acts and both are very proud of their girls and their school, as they took the title back to Jamestown….
We talked to NWG coach Lee Reavis last night and he told us, and then we told you, that the last team to beat the GDS boys in the HAECO Tournament was the Lee Reavis-coached NWG Vikings, back in 2010, when the then #8 NWG Vikings upset the #1 seeded Greensboro Day School Bengals, in the opening round and the GDS boys had won 23 consecutive games in the tourney since that night….
We told you, but many of you would not listen to us….
And I am telling you now and then I will take my first break tonight, for a quick evening meal and then I will be back, but look at Megan Harkey from the Northwest Guilford girls team today and then look back at her 2-3 years ago and I will say, she just might be the Most Improved Girls Basketball Player in our state…There can’t be much wiggle-room on this one….She has come so far and it is almost unbelievable….Megan, we are real proud of you…
And you have NWG’s Brandon Thomas, with guts to get that game-winning shot up for the NWG boys tonight, and it was almost like he got the game-winning RBI, in a baseball game, it was so BIG….
How about our main man, Jaden Ellis from Page…The soph made the All-Tournament team and this kid is for real, with over 70 points in the tournament…Nate Duggins got the clincher, but Ellis did his thing too…
Brandon Thomas, Christian Hampton and Dean Reiber on a roll tonight for the NWG boys…
*****A little more on Christian Hampton, the more I think about it, the more he reminds me of Bruce Dalrymple, who used to play for the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets…Hampton, sort of a tweener, kind of like Dalrymple, but Hampton can get up….I mentioned it to him last night/Friday and I took him back to a game at Northwest Guilford, where he jumped so high, that he went up over the rim and came down laying “flat out”/prone, on the basketball floor….Hampton is a unique player and gets a lot out of his motor and he is one of those kids, where his motor is going full steam, at all times and you have go like the fact, that he gave all of the credit for his basketball success, to his dad, who was there with him to enjoy the NWG boy’s championship last night…*****
Also very impressed with Dean Reiber and his cool demeanor….Very laid back off of the court, and very as they these days, very “cerebral”….The kid has a very good basketball foundation at 6’9, but you have to know how to do something with it, and the young man we call, “The Grim Reiber”, is doing a lot with his game, and he is doing a lot to develop and improve his game….A tip of the Summerfield cap, to Brandon Thomas, Christian Hampton and Dean Reiber and to NWG head coach Lee Reavis, congratulations on your team’s first-ever HAECO Invitational Basketball Tournament title…Good to see for Coach Reavis, a man born and raised on Northwest Guilford basketball and football…As say over by the old Summerfield Feed Mill, ‘Home Grown’………
Faith Price and Nyah Stallings also coming up big, along with KD Walker from the Ragsdale girls team and you had Reagan Kargo and Thalia Carter doing their part to try to keep that HAECO Tournament girls trophy in Summerfield, instead of it going over to Jamestown…
You had the emergence of Josh Taylor, from the GDS boys, and the ceiling on this kid is unlimited……
Some kind of last day for the HAECO Tournament and we will have more to talk about later on this evening…..
Here is one more point before I go get my food, GDS had taken a 67-62 five-point lead in OT, before NWG got back in the game, and stole/took the title…
Mariah Frazier from Ragsdale with very solid defense on Reagan Kargo, from Northwest Guilford, on Friday night…Kargo had a solid game, but Kargo and Carter had work way too hard to keep the ball moving and to get it across half court for the NWG Vikings….Pressure defense from Ragsdale was breaking NWG’s back, in the backcourt….
Bryant Wall, from the Ragsdale boys team with 24 points and 13 rebounds on Friday and Wall had a huge tournament and probably makes the All-Tournament team, if his Tigers finished third or better, in the tourney….
Solid tournament for Je’Bria “Full Throttle” Fullwood from the Greensboro Day School girls team, as she finished Friday night with 12 points and 10 rebounds, and Fullwood earned membership on the HAECO All-Tournament team…..
*****We will have more later on…*****
Girls’ Championship
#2 Ragsdale 50, #1 Northwest Guilford 45
Girls’ Third-Place Game
#5 Greensboro Day 53, #6 Page 35
2018 HAECO Invitational All-Tournament Team (Girls)
Je’Bria Fullwood, Greensboro Day School
Thalia Carter, Northwest Guilford
Reagan Kargo, Northwest Guilford
K.D. Walker, Ragsdale
Nyah Stallings, Ragsdale
Faith Price, Ragsdale (MVP)
Boys’ Championship
#2 Northwest Guilford 68, #1 Greensboro Day 67 (OT)
Boys’ Third-Place Game
#4 Page 50, #3 Smith 49
2018 HAECO Invitational All-Tournament Team (Boys)
Jaden Ellis, Page
Camren Hayes, Greensboro Day School
Josh Taylor, Greensboro Day School
Brandon Thomas, Northwest Guilford
Dean Reiber, Northwest Guilford
Christian Hampton, Northwest Guilford (MVP)
Girls Top Scorers from the Tournament
POINTS G Pts Pts/G
---------------------------------------------
Stephanie Chandler-NGHS-W..... 3 55 18.3
Reagan Kargo-NWG-W............ 3 48 16.0
Janelle Henderson-NGHS-W...... 3 46 15.3
Je'Bria Fullwood-GDS-W........ 3 45 15.0
Faith Price-RAGS-W............ 3 43 14.3
India Sturdivant-SMITH-W...... 3 34 11.3
Isabel Cox-GRIM-W............. 3 34 11.3
Anna Schmedes-PAGE-W.......... 3 32 10.7
Nyah Stallings-RAGS-W......... 3 32 10.7
Brooke Bradford-RAGS-W........ 3 32 10.7
Alaila Kreuter-PAGE-W......... 3 30 10.0
Reagan Maynard-PAGE-W......... 3 27 9.0
Jayla Harris-NGHS-W........... 3 27 9.0
Girls Top Rebounders
REBOUNDS G Reb Reb/G
---------------------------------------------
Je'Bria Fullwood-GDS-W........ 3 32 10.7
Megan Harkey-NWG-W............ 3 26 8.7
Alaila Kreuter-PAGE-W......... 3 26 8.7
India Sturdivant-SMITH-W...... 3 21 7.0
Jayla Harris-NGHS-W........... 3 21 7.0
Kamri Sawyers-GRIM-W.......... 3 21 7.0
Men’s Tournament Top Scorers:
POINTS G Pts Pts/G
---------------------------------------------
Jaden Ellis-PAGE-M............ 3 68 22.7
Christian Hampton-NWG-M....... 3 55 18.3
Carson Lomax-NGHS-M........... 3 53 17.7
Devan Boykin-RAGS-M........... 3 51 17.0
Bryant Wall-RAGS-M............ 3 51 17.0
Dean Reiber-NWG-M............. 3 49 16.3
Josh Taylor-GDS-M............. 3 44 14.7
Isaiah Staton-Ray-DHS-M....... 3 41 13.7
Nick McMullen-SMITH-M......... 3 37 12.3
Devin Resper-GRIM-M........... 3 36 12.0
Camren Hayes-GDS-M............ 3 34 11.3
Carson McCorkle-GDS-M......... 3 34 11.3
Boys Top Rebounders from the Tournament
REBOUNDS G Reb Reb/G
---------------------------------------------
Bryant Wall-RAGS-M............ 3 35 11.7
Jordan Williams-SMITH-M....... 3 27 9.0
Nicholas Evtimov-GDS-M........ 3 26 8.7
Josh Taylor-GDS-M............. 3 24 8.0
Daniel Cooper-GRIM-M.......... 3 23 7.7
Juwelz Hargrove-SMITH-M....... 3 23 7.7
Tyler Young-DHS-M............. 3 23 7.7