Summer Basketball League Heating Up

Most folks may not be thinking basketball during the hot month of June, but that is exactly what area high school basketball coaches and players are working on this month. The Boys Basketball June Summer League is being hosted at Marianna High School. The league includes all five of the counties high school teams as well as Port St. Joe, Chipley and Holmes County.
Week one of the league was last week and all five county schools ended up with splits. Marianna posted a 44-36 win over Holmes County and then fell 40-38 to Graceville. Graceville also took on Port St. Joe and were downed 70-44 by the Tiger Sharks. Malone picked up a 53-46 win over Cottondale and then fell 61-59 to Chipley. Cottondale bounced back from their loss to Malone with a 41-31 win over Sneads. The Pirates got their split with a 52-49 win over Chipley.
They began play in week two of the league this past Tuesday night and Marianna posted two wins. They downed Cottondale 58-38 and then beat county rival Malone 58-42. Malone split on the evening as just prior to the game against Marianna they beat Holmes County 62-28. Cottondale split on the night as well with the loss to Marianna and then a 67-35 win over Holmes County.
Marianna lost 9 seniors from a squad that won 26 games and went to the final four. Head Coach Travis Blanton has his work cut out for him. "It’s difficult to replace the kind of players that we lost but we’ve got a good group of kids coming up from a JV team that won 20 games. But it’s a big jump to the varsity level so I suspect we’ll take our lumps early on. I feel like though when February rolls around that we should be competitive," said Blanton.
Malone’s Steven Welch has a good nucleus of players returning. "I like where we are at much better this year than last. We were really young last year so now we’ve got a few guys that have some experience. Against Marianna we missed too many layups and didn’t keep them off the boards. They (Marianna) lost 9 seniors but they are still very athletic and we didn’t do a very good job against them," said Welch.
The Summer League action will be every Tuesday and Thursday night during the month of June at the Marianna High School gym. Four games are held each night with the first game starting at 4 pm. There is a slight difference in the game format as the clock runs continuously for 20 minutes in each half, stopping only in the final minute of each half. The public is invited to come and admission is $1.00.