Win, lose and back to drawing board

By Thomas Sellers Jr. The first quarter of the Fayette-Ware/Millington game concluded with the score 16-16. After 24 minutes of action in the William Osteen Gymnasium, the contest was still deadlocked with the scoreboard reading 48-48. But the Millington Trojan faithful had concerns as the Fayette-Ware Wildcat fans in the building were getting excited. The Wildcats erased a 39-26 halftime deficit to tie the game. Then Fayette-Ware outscored the Trojans 22-11 in the fourth quarter to prevail 70-59. “We loss it,” Millington Head Coach Jewell Gates acknowledged. “We don’t pay enough attention to the details. We didn’t cover the people we were supposed to cover. We don’t go where we’re supposed to go. It’s the attention to details like that, that determine if you lose or win.” Before the Trojans stepped foot onto the court Friday night, Gates and the Millington coaching staff placed scouting reports into each locker. The Fayette-Ware breakdown was spot on keying in on four Wildcats. “All you’ve got to do is remember what you’re supposed to do, who can do what for them and play hard,” Gates said. “And we don’t. We’ll do it for a quarter or two. Then think we don’t have to do it anymore.” As both teams went through the feeling-out period, the first quarter ended with a tie. Kaveyon Lewis made a basket at the buzzer to deadlock the game at 16-16. The second quarter was an exercise in the Millington players bringing the scouting report to fruition. The Trojans locked down on the shooters and limited the Fayette-Ware point guard’s effectiveness. Meanwhile Millington began to click offensively starting with a Bobby Macklin jumper. Lewis scored the next 5 points to make the tally 26-18. Millington’s overall run was 12-2 after Taveon Collier made a bucket bringing the score to 28-18. The rest of the first half the Trojans outscored the Wildcats 11-8 to take a 39-26 lead into the locker room. Then the third quarter belonged to Fayette-Ware with the Wildcats chipping away at the Millington advantage. The Trojans’ largest lead was 44-28 after a Lewis basket. For the next 6 minutes in the third quarter, Fayette-Ware outscored Millington 18-4 to tie the game at 48-48 entering the fourth quarter. In the final period, Macklin gave the Trojans a brief lead at 50-48. Millington’s last lead of the game came courtesy of a pair of Lewis foul shots at 55-54. Down the stretch Fayette-Ware outscored Millington 16-4 to drop the Trojans to 1-3 in District 15-2A play.