Andalusia takes victory
Published 12:42 am Wednesday, January 14, 2009
It was another day at the office for the Andalusia Bulldogs Tuesday night.
Thomasville started out strong against the dominant Bulldogs, but fell 77-38 in the area contest.
“(Thomasville is) not a bad basketball team,” Andalusia coach Richard Robertson said. “What we did, we took away their plan of attack for us and when we did that, things started turning our way. We had a nine-point lead at the half, but our trouble was decision making. We’ve got to make better decisions.
“We made a move that hurt Thomasville and put us in control, but we made some bad decisions on our part and they capitalized on them,” he said.
The first quarter started well for Andalusia as the Bulldogs scored 21 points while only allowing 11 to Thomasville.
Both teams stayed even in scoring the rest of the first half as Thomasville put up 14 and Andalusia put up 13.
To start the second half, Andalusia’s Brandon Sims hit two 3-pointers in a row. Sims helped pace the Bulldogs’ scoring on the night with 14 points, along with Nico Johnson, who added 22 and Jamal Curry with 12.
Robertson said it is essential that his team follow the “plan” in order to be successful in their games.
“You want to do everything by the plan and sometimes even when you do it by the plan you’re not going to be successful,” he said. “We were doing it well enough to be in the lead, but you’ve got to do it well enough that you don’t break down somewhere. We did and then we went back to our alternate plan after making an adjustment, we took a stretch of about one minute where we took control of the ball game.”
Andalusia remained on the scoring warpath as the Bulldogs put up 33 points in the third quarter.
The Bulldogs (15-2, 3-0 in Class 4A, Area 3) only allowed Thomasville three additional points in the fourth quarter to close out the game.
When asked about facing Clarke County in Andalusia Friday night, Robertson said he’ll have to come up with an alternate plan to counteract their opponent. Andalusia beat Clarke County 65-57 in Grove Hill on Jan. 2.
“I’ll start working on them when I get home and that’s what is bothering me right now,” Robertson said. “The plan we used on them over there, they’re going to be prepared for it. Now, I’ve got to come up with a counter plan just in case.
“I’m pretty sure with them being well-coached that they’ll have a plan,” he said. “We’ve had two losses and that’s what happened in both of them, we destroyed ourselves.”
Andalusia will host Clarke County Friday, with B-team tip off at 4:30 p.m.
In earlier action Tuesday night, the Lady Bulldogs capped a close victory over Thomasville, 53-49.
“We lost our composure a little bit and we were out of sync,” Andalusia coach Bennie Shellhouse said. “But, we ended up making a good recovery.”
The Lady Bulldogs improved to 3-0 in Class 4A, Area 3.
Leading scorers for Andalusia were Anjelica White with 14 points, Amber Anderson with 13 and Chantavia Lawrence with nine.