During halftime of the boy’s middle school basketball team’s second game of the Spencerville Adventist Academy (SAA) Middle School Winter Tournament, head coach Jonathan McLure told his team they had to calm down the offense and stop fouling on defense. Most of the other team’s points were coming from the free throw line and McLure wanted to pressure the ball, force turnovers and get easy points.
At the fifth annual SAA Middle School Winter Classic Basketball Tournament, the Lions had high energy on and off the court, helping them get into the groove of the game, according to seventh-grader Jonah Levingston. The Lions finished the tournament with two losses and one win.
This was the second year the Lions attended this tournament, a two-day event in which 12 teams participated. Even with three gyms in the school, teams had to take turns traveling to different nearby schools to compete.
The first game of the tournament was on the night of Dec. 14, where the Lions played the Forcey Christian School Falcons. Last year, when the Lions played the Falcons, they lost by over 30 points. This year, however, the Lions had the lead in the first minutes of the game, but Forcey forced many turnovers, and the Lions were unable to catch up. The final score was 38-22 Forcey.
“I think losses could motivate us because they could tell us what we can do better,” eighth-grader Sam Olin said.
The Lion’s second game was on Dec. 15. According to Olin, this game was the Lion’s best game. They played the Spencerville Hornets, who they had beaten earlier in the season 49-14. The Lions started strong, taking a quick 9-5 lead. They went into the half with a seven-point lead, 15-8.
McLure believes that the second half of this game was their best half of the tournament. In the second half, the Lions stopped turning the ball over and fouling. They only allowed the Hornets to score six points in the second half. The Lions won the game 30-14.
“We were a little careless with the ball at times and just gave them some easy points,” McLure said. “We were fouling too much, but once we settled in, once we started moving the ball, we started cutting, we were really able to get a lot of shots.”
The Lions went into the third game with a lot of energy after their win against the Hornets. They started the game hot with a 7-0 run. The Takoma Tiger Cubs answered back and ended the half up 16-11 Tiger Cubs.
“We started off great,” McLure said. “We came out with a ton of energy, [a] ton of effort, we played extremely hard. We were hitting some shots early, our confidence was really high.”
There were many incidents during the second half that affected the Lions, including scoreboard issues. Right before halftime, the scorekeepers gave points to the wrong team, but corrected this error later and gave the points back to the right team. Additionally, during the second half starting players Levingston and Olin got injured, leading the Lions to lose to the Tiger Cubs 39-21.
According to McLure, this tournament was a great learning experience for the team because they played highly experienced teams that they would not have played during the regular season. The team believes that they played well against these teams because they built off each other during games.
“We’re a community,” Levingston said. “I feel like the coach has done a great job just instilling team values and we play well together when we’re all locked in.”
