Kennett wins District Title

For the first time since 1975, The Kennett Indians have won a district title in basketball.

That win came in impressive fashion Friday night against the Charleston Blue Jays. The Indians took one on the chin two weeks ago in Charleston, loosing the game 94-78. Kennett turned the tables Friday night to beat the Blue Jays 75-62 in the District Championship Game.

"It's indescribable," said Kennett's Jay Shavers. "I can't even put into words how I'm feeling right now."

Not only did the Kennett boys win the district title, but the Kennett girls captured their district title the game before. The girls win was also against Charleston.

"It feels unbelievable for the boys and girls to win this on the same night," said Kennett coach Jim Vaughan. "The girls came out and set the tone right away. How impressive and dominant was their win. This is an enormously special time with how packed this gym was tonight and how everybody was on board. It's so exciting to be a Kennett Indian right now. I'm just thank full that God has put me here and given me the people that I do this along side with. These kids are amazing. When you're a coach you gain relationships with kids and there is something so special about this group."

When Kennett and Charleston met up at the end of the regular season, the Blue Jays were unstoppable from the perimeter. Charleston hit 11 3-pointer's in the game and six of those came from Deonte Jones. The perimeter shooting was the biggest factor in the Blue Jays taking the win in the first meeting between the two teams.

Friday night, the Indians did not allow Charleston one 3-pointer. That is an impressive feat considering that the Blue Jays are possibly the best shooting team in the area.

"We practiced defense all week. No offense, just defense." Shavers said jokingly.

Knowing how much Charleston relies on their ability to shoot the 3'ball, Kennett game planned to take that threat away.

"We were going to close on Gregory Tucker real hard," Vaughan said. "We were going to do everything we could not to let Deonte Jones have the ball. He worked his tail off to move and cut. The two kids that we assigned to him, Jack Walls and Dwight Usry, were unreal. They knew what they had to do. They took a mission and accomplished it. Our defensive philosophy in the half court tonight was that we had to be a one-on-one defensive basketball team. Not one-on-one where we're giving steps, but one-on-one where we are ready to touch the basketball as soon as somebody catches it. If you let Charleston get looks you're in trouble. After they hit one shot it starts raining and they breed confidence out of it."

While Charleston struggled with their main offensive weapon, Kennett's main weapons were in full force.

Fred Garmon and Randrick Caruthers played possibly their best games of the season. Garmon finished the night with 28-points while Caruthers narrowly missed a triple-double. Caruthers totaled 20-points, 10-assist, nine-rebounds and four-steals.

"Garmon and Caruthers haven't scored as a 1-2 punch like that all year long," Vaughan said. "They took it upon themselves that the team was going to get the right looks. When we looked at the film from our last Charleston game, we saw that we were able to get to the lane. What we didn't do, was get all the way to the rim and continue to attack. That was our focus tonight. To just keep getting all the way deep. Garmon and Caruthers are the two that are so good with the basketball in their hands. When you square them up, you can't pick a side on them because they can go either way. They were both competitive and they finished tough at the basket more than they have any other time this year."

The Indians led for the entire game and it seemed Garmon and Caruthers would make a big play every time Charleston would put a run together.

"Caruthers and Garmon are juniors and thats the worst thing about it," said Charleston coach Danny Farmer. "We're going to have to see them again next year. They're two very good ball players. I thought they played well and smart when it counted. When we tried to put the pressure on them they didn't panic. They did what they had to do to win. They were pretty impressive."

The Blue Jays overcame a 15-point deficit to get the game within nine-points in the fourth quarter. The Indians withstood the Charleston run though.

"They came out attacking," Garmon said. We just wanted to keep our composure and not get riled in the backcourt. Guys stepped up and we handled it. Our motto is protect this house and that's what we wanted to do out there."

Charleston had their work cut out for them in the game as they went into double over time the night before in the semifinals. The late night may have taken a toll on their legs. If a team is facing Kennett, they are definitely going to have run all out for the entirety.

"I'm sure last night's game had an effect on us," Farmer said. "After going into double overtime and then coming back tonight to play another quick team, we had to be fatigued some. You can't take anything away from Kennett though. They played well and shot the ball well. They just wanted the game a lot more. I just can't take anything away from how they played."

Even though the Blue Jays may have been fatigued, they held their own pretty good against Kennett's up-tempo style of play.

"I thought we were aggressive, but I don't think we ran as well as we did last night," Vaughan said. "Charleston had a lot to do with that because their defensive positioning is so good. They're in the right spots and they're there ahead of time. Therefore, our offensive transition wasn't as effective as it was last night. That being said, we took an attempt to make them run the floor every time. Wether we got early easy offense or not, we still made them run every time. That's part of what we want to do. We have to use our depth a little bit and Charleston has depth too. We just want to hope that our depth is a little better than other teams when it comes to the stretch run. We didn't get early easy offense all the time, but we did force the issue enough that it kept the game up-tempo for us."

The Indians will move on to the next round of the State Tournament where they will face the Arcadia Valley Tigers in Dexter on Wednesday night. Arcadia Valley is out of the Mineral Area Conference and have gone undefeated this year (28-0). Arcadia Valley is currently ranked 1 in Class 3.

"We didn't want to look ahead before we had this game," Vaughan said. "That being said, I have talked to a couple of people about Arcadia Valley. They had a big win Thursday night because Clearwater has had an impressive year. I hear people talk about the competition up there and style of play as opposed to down here. That doesn't matter. Arcadia Valley has ran the table, so there is no doubt that they are a good team. We're gonna try and find out as much as we can about them, but it's not going to change what we do. We're going to be who we are and do what got us here. Our kids believe and have confidence so we're going to take that into the game and hopefully it turns out good for us."

Charleston had three players reach double digits in scoring with Demarques McKeller leading at 19-points. Devonte Johnson finished with 11 and Jones put in 10-points.

Kennett also had three players reach double figures with Garmon leading at 28-points. Caruthers finished with 20 and Gooden put in 12-points.