By Thomas Sellers Jr.
As the district tournament is quickly approaching, the Millington Trojans finally stepped back into the ring at the William Osteen Gymnasium for a showdown with rival Bolton.
The prize fight scheduled for four quarters was a chance for the Trojans and Head Coach Jewell Gates to exercise a little revenge. In the previous matchup, the Wildcats jumped out early and pulled away to beat the Trojans.
Millington came out at the bell ready in the rematch taking a 17-7 lead. The Trojans kept the offense flowing leading to a 94-76 victory over Bolton.
“We’ve just got to come out to start a game with a desire to fight,” Gates said. “You talk about taking a punch, we got to deliver punches. We’ve got to be able to go out with a certain mentality. I speak so much about a mentality, a mindset about toughness.
“When we don’t come out aggressively, people do punch us,” he continued. “It’s because we allow them to punch us. If we come out aggressively, we’ll do the punching and have them on their heels. We’ll be ahead and we can continuously and gradually walk away. It was very important for us tonight to get off to a good start.”
When Trojan BJ Gilmore drilled a three-pointer in the first quarter, Millington was ahead by 10 points. The combination of Gilmore and Josh Harris paced the Trojans in the opening moments.
Millington’s Blake Garner sparked his team with rebounding and defense. Prior to the Gilmore triple, Garner blocked a Bolton layup leading to a Millington fast break bucket.
The lead was 24-12 for Millington heading into the second quarter.
“We’ll be able to score the basketball in my opinion against anyone,” Gates said. “If we get off to a good start, we’ll be able to continue to score. You’ve seen us get off to a bad start like at Bolton with it 15-1. But we’re down at half 29-26.”
Bolton was trailing 45-30 at halftime of this contest. In the second quarter Seth Grandberry hit his teammate Diego Reyes with a no-look pass leading to a layup for a 26-12 advantage. As the first half came to a close, Grandberry hit a three-pointer helping Millington take a 15-point lead into the locker room.
The Wildcats came out of the corner for the second half swinging. Bolton proceeded with a 14-7 run to cut the Millington lead to single digits.
“I’m not saying in an arrogant way but I was not nervous,” Gates said of the score being 54-44 midway in the third quarter. “I never felt worried. Probably at that point I was seated on the bench at that time. I couldn’t get up and be me.
“To the normal person they might have thought I was nervous because I couldn’t get up and be who I am,” he added. “Confidence comes from what you do on Sunday, Monday, Wednesday and Thursday for us. These days in practice. Tuesday and Friday we’re playing. Saturday we’re resting.”
There was no rest for Bolton the final 12 minutes of the game as Millington scored 40 points. Brandon Payne and Winston Moore joined Grandberry in point guard duties sharing the basketball to multiple players.
Gilmore and Grandberry led the way with 24 points each. Harris was one of three other Millington players to reach double figures with 14 points, adding 17 rebounds. Garner and Chris Barnes added 12 and 10 points respectively. Reyes added 8 points.
It was the ninth time this season Millington has scored at least 70 points in a game and the second time they have been in the 90s.
“The main reason why I wasn’t too discouraged was because I knew we came in here Sunday and did well,” Gates concluded. “We came in here Monday and did well. It was Bolton returning a punch and we delivered two more. I am confident in them. Now they have to be confident in each other and especially themselves.”
