Hunter: Talking about basketball

By DAVID HUNTER

The journey is complete as I watched Westside at Eastside as the 2016 Cannon County Grammar School basketball season ended last week. It means now I have viewed a basketball game from each of the six schools in the county.

Before talking about the actual games last week, here are my thoughts about CCGS basketball. Each of the six gyms is unique in size and awesome crowd atmosphere, which brings a feel like the "Hoosiers," the best sports movie of all time.

Of course, I am not going to single out one school from another, because that would be unfair to all of you. However, I would like to thank all the coaches, players, administrators, other school officials, and parents from each of the six schools for their help and hospitably.

As for the games, the Westside Lady Eagles took care of the Eastside Lady Tigers, 43-3 as both teams were trying to bounce back from a loss in their first game at the Border War tournament a couple of weeks ago.

All six Westside players scored in the win as they were led by Marlee McNutt with 20 points, while Stella Brown scored the only three points for Eastside. Brown might be on iTunes soon as she did a nice job singing the national anthem before the doubleheader.

"I think it was pretty good, we did better tonight," McNutt said after the game.

As for the boys, the Eagles were still missing one of their top scorers, Lima Allen, due to illness. However, Gus Davenport picked up the scoring, while the other Westside players stepped up in other ways to help the team to a 55-31 win over Eastside.

Davenport finished with 29 points, while the Tigers were led by Eli Cantrell with 21. Maybe in a couple of weeks, they could be teammates on the Cannon County Middle Grade basketball team?

"We played great team ball, and we passed the ball well," Davenport said. "If we just pass the ball and move, we will keep winning."

Cantrell added, "We played one of the best teams in the county. We tried our best, but it did not come our right."

The regular season ended on Nov. 10, and the county tournament will be next week at Robert A. Harris Gymnasium on the CCHS campus. Also, tryouts for the CCMG team and the cancer tournament at WGS will be held during the next few weeks.