Summer League Basketball Wraps Up

7/3/08

By Clint Cox
The June Summer Basketball League held at Marianna High School came to a close last Thursday night and by all indications it was another successful summer. Three Jackson County schools were in action on this final night. Marianna dropped a close game to Port St. Joe when the Tiger Sharks hit a shot at the buzzer to win 53-52. The Tiger Sharks then downed the Sneads Pirates by a score of 70-49. Marianna and Malone then squared off one more time and the Bulldogs came away with a 65-50 win. In the night-capper it was Sneads and Malone doing battle with the Tigers posting a 10 point win over the Pirates.
Bulldog and host coach Travis Blanton said the league was beneficial to his team and the other teams as well. "I think we had another successful summer league. All the teams improved each week and I think we have one of the better officiated summer leagues in the state. The Northwest Florida Officials Association does a great job for us," commented Blanton. As for his Bulldogs, Blanton liked what he saw over the summer. "We lost some outstanding players from last year’s squad (9 seniors) but I am really excited about the upcoming season. I feel like the kids coming up have bought into our team concept and I saw a lot of unselfish play over the past month. We’ll have a lot of juniors that need to step up but I like what I’ve seen from their effort this summer," Blanton said. The Bulldogs will spend the remainder of the summer working out individually and spending time in the weight room.

Sneads Head Coach Kelvin Johnson acknowledged his upcoming team has their work cut out for them. "We are back to being young. We’ll have 3 seniors and after that I’ve got a bunch of 10th graders that will have to step up and play varsity. They’re a good group and there is some talent there, but they are very young. This summer has been good for them. They’ve taken their lumps but that will help us in the long run. Some nights we looked pretty good and some nights we looked like a summer team," Johnson said in assessing his team’s progress over the summer. The Pirates will continue their summer league activities by participating in a July schedule with Blountstown, Altha and Liberty County.
Malone Head Coach Steven Welch said he saw some things he liked and some things to work on over the summer. "It was a typical summer league for us. Some nights we were up and some nights we were down. But you never know who’ll you have on a given night and you never quite know what kind of legs they will have," Welch commented regarding the common occurrence in summer ball of players not being able to play on a given night or not being in the same kind of shape as during the regular season. All in all though Welch liked what he saw. "We’ve got a good mix of some players with experience and then some young players coming up. I saw some improvement in several areas and then I saw some things we still need to be working on," said Welch. The Tigers will close out the summer by individual workouts and a few pickup games here and there.