Bulldogs Bound For State

By Clint Cox

The Marianna Bulldogs continued their quest for a State Championship with a 52-45 win over Florida High last Saturday night in the Class 3A Region 1 Finals. The win advanced the Bulldogs to the FHSAA Semi-Final contest in Lakeland on Wednesday against Pine Crest (Ft. Lauderdale). The results of Wednesday’s contest were not available at press time. If the Bulldogs could pull off a win over Pine Crest they would advance to the State Championship game to be played on Friday at 2:30 pm C.S.T. They would take on the winner of Wednesday’s other semi-final contest between P.K. Yonge and Dunbar.
Saturday night’s contest was before a standing room only crowd at the Dog House. Marianna took an early 8-5 lead on the outside shooting of Tyler Wilson who hit two 3 pointer’s in the opening quarter. The second quarter belonged to Brandon Gibson as the 6’7" senior hit five straight unanswered points to push Marianna’s lead to 13-5. The first half ended with the Bulldogs leading 17-10. The Seminoles of Florida High rallied in the third quarter and pulled to within one point, 29-28. Gibson again came up with back to back buckets, including a thundering slam dunk to put the Bulldogs up by five points. C.J. Blount then got back to back buckets as Marianna’s lead swelled back to 9 points. The Bulldogs led by as many as 12 points in the final quarter but the Seminoles would not go away quietly. They kept battling and managed to cut the Bulldog lead to as few as 7 points by the time of the final horn. Blount hit two big free throws with 17 seconds left to preserve the 7 point lead for the Bulldogs.
Marianna improved to 25-3 on the season and head to Lakeland as the #2 ranked team in the state. Their opponent on Wednesday will enter that contest with an impressive record as well. Pine Crest was 27-4 after winning their Region Final by a score of 74-37 over LaSalle. Their average margin of victory in the 3 playoff games leading up to the State Semi-Finals was 23 points.