Hurricane Basketball Teams Make It to State

After winning their quarterfinal games, the boys with a 56-53 win over Social Circle, and the girls with a big rematch win against McNair 52-36, both teams advanced to the semifinals of the Region 4-A tournament, played at Lamar County.

The girls faced a tough opponent in Lamar County, whom they had lost to a couple of weeks prior, and were looking to gain some retribution in advancing to the region championship game. The Lady Canes got off to a slow start against the Lady Trojans, falling behind 18-9 after the first quarter of play, but pulling within five at 28-23 at the half after a strong second quarter of play. After playing even through the third, and going into the fourth down 46-38, the ladies turned it on, outscoring their counterparts by a 20-12 margin to knot the score and force overtime.

In the extra period of play, the Lady Canes fell after the first free period by a final score of 69-65. The loss gave them a consolation matchup with Southwest Atlanta Christian to determine the third seed. Playing even throughout the game, a nine-point deficit in the second quarter was the resulting final margin of the game, with the Lady Canes falling by a final score of 61-52 at the hands of the Lady Warriors.

The Lady Canes were to travel Tuesday for the first round of the GHSA Class A State Playoffs, taking on Heard County who is an 8th seed (Monticello is 25th) with a 23-3 overall record.

The Hurricane boys had a different route to the state playoffs, taking out rival Social Circle in the quarterfinal game, then falling to state power Greenforest by a score of 70-36 in the semifinals. This set up a matchup with Towers in the consolation round in what was to be a battle for the third seed, but Towers…didn’t show. Forfeiting the game to the Hurricanes, the Canes took the third seed, but because the GHSA places playoff teams according to the power ranking system, the Canes will be the 25th seed in the state playoffs, facing off against the Region 6 Temple Tigers.

This game is set for Wednesday. The results of the playoff games, along with All-Region team information, will be in next week’s edition of The News. Good luck to both teams at state.