By Thomas Sellers Jr.
The rival Fayette Academy Vikings made the trip to Rosemark looking to pull off an upset against the rival Rebels.
Tipton-Rosemark Academy wasn’t in the mood to play around and established early Jan. 20 in front of the rowdy TRA Gymnasium Student Section the red, white and blue would leave out happy.
Pressure defense, point guard Brennan Patel running the show and Nix Fullen battling Fayette Academy standout forward Tate Scoggins was the recipe for a 67-50 win for the Rebels.
“I thought we were locked in defensively,” TRA Head Coach Bryant Wilkinson noted. “Had to shut down their guards and protect the post.”
Scoggins is an All-Region player and proved his worth early in the game scoring all 9 of the Vikings points in the first quarter. On the other hand the Rebels had all parts working under the direction of Patel tallying 19 points in the first 8 minutes.
“I am proud of our guys and I thought we went out there to battle,” Wilkinson said. “We got that extra effort and the hard play. We made that effort tonight.”
Patel matched Scoggins basket for basket in the opening moments with a pair of shots to make the score 4-4. After a Fullen free throw made the score 5-4, TRA never looked back.
Kingston Words made a pair of foul shots and scored on a put-back bucket. After a Kingston jumper made the score 11-6, Patel located a streaking Fullen for a fast break basket to make the tally 13-6.
Closing out the first quarter, Kingston hit another jumper to make the score 19-9.
In the second quarter TRA seized full control of the game with Patel driving to the rack for scores and Demetric Words using his mid-range jumper to make the tally 37-19 at halftime.
TRA took its foot off the pedal by the fourth quarter and the Vikings won the second half 31-30.
“We’ve got a long way to go and I am excited to see if we can reach that potential,” Wilkinson concluded.
