Defense leads Albertville hoops to sweep of rival Guntersville

For both Albertville coaches ahead of Monday night’s game against rival Guntersville the goal was simple: Limit the pair of Guntersville stars on both teams, or at least make the supporting cast beat them.

The Aggies saw that plan play out to perfection, sweeping a pair of defensive battles in the first meeting of the year between the two teams, with the Aggie girls holding off Guntersville for a 36-35 win, then the boys surging in the fourth quarter for a 56-50 win.

In the girls game to open the night, Guntersville jumped out to a quick 11-5 lead after one, but the Aggies flipped the script in the second, hitting four 3-pointers on their way to a 16-6 edge in the period to take a 21-17 lead into halftime.

Out of the break, momentum swung back in favor of the Wildcats on the strength of post player Tazi Harris, who poured in 12 points in the period, helping her to a game-high 17, as Guntersville took a narrow 29-27 lead to the fourth.

In the fourth, it was Albertville who found just enough offense in the closing minutes to pull ahead and pull out the win.

An Ava Teague 3-pointer off of good ball movement pulled the Aggies within one at 33-32, then post player Felicie Alix had a putback shot for the lead, followed by Caroline Thomas driving and drawing the defense, only to feed Alix who connected for a 36-33 lead. Alix finished with eight points, while Sarah Rutledge paced Albertville with nine, and Evie Smart netting seven in the win.

Olivia Vandergriff hit a pair of free throws for Guntersville to trim the lead to one, 36-35, with 47 seconds left, then senior Caroline Thomas made what Albertville coach Matt Nelson called the, “play of the game” for the Aggies.

With Guntersville pressing and Albertville trying to kill the clock, the Wildcats forced a steal after the Aggies crossed the mid-court line, only to see Thomas take a charge and force a turnover, giving the ball back to Albertville.

The Aggies were fouled off the ensuing inbounds, missing the front end of a one-and-one, with under 18 seconds to go.

Out of a timeout, Guntersville put the ball in the hands of Vandergriff, whose drive in traffic bounced off, only to see the Wildcats get the rebound and a 3-point try that also bounced out. A held ball with 0.5 seconds left off the rebound went to the Aggies, and so did the 36-35 win.

“Guntersville has a really, really good team, and they have two of the best players in north Alabama,” Coach Nelson said. “To be able to hang in there and get this one was huge. That’s a really good team, they’ll be ranked … but more than anything, hopefully it will be a confidence booster for us. We know we can beat good teams, and hopefully it will spur us on and kind of get us on a roll.”

Albertville climbs to 3-1 with the win,

In the boys game that followed, it was a game of runs that saw Guntersville take the early lead, but the Wildcats were never able to stretch it to put the game out of reach.

The Wildcats opened the game with a 13-6 edge after one, and eventually stretched the lead to nine in the first half before Albertville rallied to trim the deficit to 21-19 at the break.

Albertville continued to chip away out of halftime, eventually taking its first lead with 50 seconds left in the third, 30-28, and 32-31 edge to the fourth.

In the final period, it was the Elijah Moss and JoJo Prickett show. The pair of seniors combined for 15 of Albertville’s 24 points in the frame, eight for Moss on his way to a game-high 20, and seven for Prickett on his way to 10, while Jon Wesley Seay netted 11.

Albertville opened the fourth with a 14-7 run, and appeared set to run away, stretching the lead to 10 with 2:36 to play before Guntersville’s Curt Blanchard connected on an and-one play, spurring Guntersville on a 10-2 run to make it 52-50 for the Aggies with 35 ticks left.

But from there, Moss hit a pair of free throws, finishing 4 of 4 at the line in the fourth, to make it a two-possession game, while the defense kept Guntersville from scoring in the final moments.

“It’s really fun to be a part of that rivalry,” Albertville coach Dylan Bunnell said. “I’m really glad our team got to experience that and come out with it. To have to battle out of it, that first half we missed as many shots as you can miss. But we kept chipping away and chipping away. The thing with this team, we have some talented offensive players, but they play defense all the time. They take a lot of pride in guarding, to hold them to 50 points, I was pretty proud of our guys to do that.”

Guntersville was paced by Brody Perry who knocked down four 3-pointers for 12  points, while Cooper Davidson netted 10, and Brandon Fussell chipped in nine.

The win pushed Albertville to 4-4 on the season, having won 4 of 5 after an 0-3 start, while Guntersville falls to 2-2 on the young season.

Albertville returns to action on Friday with another county rivalry showdown against Arab, while both Guntersville teams return to the court on Thursday with a road game against 6A Columbia.