Coach Jessie Brown and the Newcastle Racers are doing it again. They appear to be peaking at just the right time of the year to make another bid at the OSSAA State Tournament.
They nabbed the Class 4A Area II Regional Championship title Saturday by defeating Bridge Creek, 61-48 on Thursday, and then Bishop McGuiness, 52-50 on Saturday.
Coach Brown said he was sure proud of his Racer boys.
“They are accepting the challenge,” Brown said. “We just need to put a few more games together.”
That starts at 7:30 Friday at the Mvskoke Dome in Okmulgee with a game against North Rock Creek. Brown said the Racers need to win that first game on Friday to ensure the trip to State, however, if they were to lose they could still continue forward with a consolation champioship win. That is what entails more games.
Against Bridge Creek, Brown said he knew it was going to be a tough game, because their coach has them playing well.
“We were ready but couldn’t make a shot,” Brown said. “We defended okay, but as the game went on, we started locking down defensively. We created some turnovers, and ended up winning by 13.”
In score by quarters, Newcastle had 12, 10, 16, and 23 points while Bridge Creek had 10, 9, 22 and 7.
Brown said after Bridge Creek scored 22 in the third quarter the Racers talked about defending for the fourth quarter, and what they needed to do to get back to the State Tournament.
“They locked in and played some defense,” Brown said.
Scoring for Newcastle was: Bobby Burrell, 13; Antonio Brown, 11; Alan Price, 11; Zachary Cragg, 11; Jon’Tre Sloan, 5; Alec Shumard, 5; Rex Heskew, 3; and Chris Brinlee, 2.
The victory moved Newcastle to the finals round where they faced Bishop McGuiness, and won the Regional title.
“They came out and played a good game against us,” Brown said. “They hit a lot of shots, lit it up early in the game.”
The coach said the Racers didn’t play terrible defense, but it wasn’t their best. They did, however, hit their shots, Brown said.
Newcastle played from behind the entire game until the last couple of minutes where the Racers grabbed the lead and held on, according to the coach.
Score by quarters was the following: Newcastle had 8, 17, 15, 12, and Bishop McGuiness had 16, 15, 15, 4. The Racers held both of their Regional Tournament opponents to single digit scoring in the fourth quarter.
Newcastle scorers were: Brown, 17; Burrell, 17; Cragg, 15; Price, 3.
Brown said, “It was a good game.”
