Cougars Begin State Title Quest

The Piedmont Academy varsity boys basketball team is set to begin its quest for a state championship as the Cougars will meet Flint River today, Feb. 16, in a first-round Class AA state tournament contest.

Piedmont finished as the No. 3 seed from the Region 1-AA tournament played last week and will face the Flint River Wildcats, a No. 2 seed, today at 4 p.m. at Middle Georgia College in Cochran.

Coach Chip Champion said although his Cougar team lost twice to Flint River during the season, he believes his players have the potential to play well and earn an upset.

“We have nothing to lose,” the coach said. “All the pressure is on Flint River. They don’t respect us so we’ll go out and see what happens. If we win, I believe we have a strong chance to get to the Final Four because of the way the brackets are.”
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Piedmont entered its region tournament as the No. 1 seed and had hoped to emerge as the champion. However, the Cougars were upset by Gatewood, a team they had defeated twice during the regular season, 41-28 in the semifinals.

It was an off night offensively for Piedmont, who had scored 28 points in as little as a quarter during the regular season.

“We were scared to death,” Champion admitted. “We had never been in that position before. We put a lot of pressure on ourselves being a No. 1 seed. It was the wrong night to have a bad game.”
Both teams struggled offensively in the low-scoring contest, but the Cougars had more struggles, shooting approximately 20 percent from the field.

Trailing by four points at halftime, Piedmont never got fully into its game and eventually lost by 13. Whit Morgan was the team’s leading scorer with six points followed by Lance Richardson, Josh Phillips and Cris Jackson all with five.
The loss put the Cougars into the game for third place against Briarwood. The Buccaneers had just defeated Piedmont a few days earlier, but they were also upset in their first tournament contest.
Briarwood had the basketball with the game tied with 5.7 seconds left. Richardson then made a steal for the Cougars and called time with 2.7 seconds left. Richardson was fouled as time expired and managed to make one free throw for the 49-48 win.

“We played better against Briarwood, but you still wish you had that first game (against Gatewood) back,” Champion said.

Richardson was the leading scorer with 17 points while Zac Hauther added 10 and Micah Tyler finished with nine.

With no seniors on the roster, this technically wasn’t supposed to be Piedmont’s season to win the region although the Cougars went 11-1 during the regular season in 1-AA games.

Champion said the experience this season should be a benefit to his team for next year when the region tournament is played in Monticello.
Brentwood will be Region 1-AA’s No. 1 seed in the state tournament defeating Gatewood 35-29 in the championship game.