Defending champ Yazoo City looks solid as solid as ever win over New Hope
ITTA BENA — Defending state champion Yazoo City looked determined in Wednesday night's 56-32 quarterfinal win over New Hope, and now the Indians are headed back to the Big House.
Behind a fast start and the steady play of play of Damarion Winston, the Indians raced past the Trojans at Mississippi Valley State’s Stribling-Williams Court and into the MHSAA Boys Class 5A basketball semifinals.
Yazoo City (27-5) will face the Provine-Brookhaven winner at 7 p.m. Tuesday at the Mississippi Coliseum.
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“One of the things we talked about the last couple of days was we knew they were a good team," Yazoo City coach Anthony Carlyle said. "But we felt like we were going to be the best they’ve faced all season. We’ve been battle-tested, and we told the guys we’ve been through the trenches too much to just go out here to give a game away, so we wanted to come out, take a lead and make them play from behind.”
The Indians did just that — they jumped out to a 13-0 lead to begin the game and never looked back.
They led it 19-9 after the first quarter and 39-24 after the third quarter. The Indians fourth-quarter lead never dwindled below 15 points.
Winston had a game-high 16 points to lead Yazoo City, while Jackson State signee Tamarion Hoover added 14 and Daveon Henry chipped in 10.
“Those are our main two guys and we go as they go," Carlyle said, alluding to Winston and Hoover. "Daveon also played pretty solid tonight and he's done it all season. We put a point of emphasis on defending and rebounding, and tonight they wanted to attack the glass and we did a good job of taking that away from them. These kids have been working hard to get back to the Coliseum and ready to get to that point, and now that we’re there we just got find a way to win one more.”
As good as Hoover has been — the senior was named the Mr. Basketball winner two weeks ago — Winston has been just as instrumental for Yazoo City down the stretch.
The Yazoo City Indians are headed back to the Final 4 of the MHSAA Boys State Basketball Tournament after a quarterfinal win over New Hope.
Photo by Austin Frayser
“We came out with a lot of energy and intensity on defense, got some stops and that lead to us having success on offense,” Winston said. “Executing at a high level on both ends was huge and it’s a blessing to get back to this point.”
Wilton Bush had 10 points to lead New Hope. The Trojans ended the season 26-3.
“Picked a bad night to have a bad night,” said New Hope coach Drew McBrayer. “Anytime you get down to a team like that early, it’s very hard to dig yourself out of that hole. We struggled big time to get shots to go. We know what it takes to get to this point, now we got find ways to get over this hump.”
