The Bauxite Miners qualified for the 4A State Tournament on Thursday with a 58-37 blowout victory over the Star City Bulldogs at Monticello High School in the 4A South Regional. It’s the second straight year the regional No. 3 seed Miners have qualified for state, winning their first state tournament game ever last year, as they jumped on the No. 2 seed Bulldogs early on Thursday.
Bauxite (22-8) went up 11-0 early on its way to a 19-4 first-quarter lead.
“We came out and executed really well,” Bauxite Coach Andy Brakebill said. “They played man (defense) on us so we were able to run a lot of our offensive stuff and get some easy baskets. We just executed really well and played hard.”
The Miners didn’t stop there as they went up 31-13 at the half.
“They had a 6-6 kid (senior Jaylan Hegwood), 250-260 (pounds) inside we were worried about and worked all week on containing penetration and making sure as Cooper (Wright) was battling him inside, we were there on the backside help,” Brakebill said. “We had three days to prepare for it and our guys did a good job of executing the game plan.”
The Miners will attempt to reach the regional title game tonight when they face a familiar foe. Bauxite takes down the No. 1 seed Ashdown Panthers (20-5), a team that beat the Miners 51-49 in Ashdown, tonight at 8:30 in Monticello.