Scott County Central survives Oak Ridge on the road

The Scott County Central Braves boys basketball team defeated the Oak Ridge Blue Jays 60-55 on Friday at Oak Ridge High School.

The Braves were led on offense by Cortavian Banks with 25 points, Courtney Sanders III, and Cameron Bean with 11 each.

Cohen Hahs paced the Blue Jays with 22 while Kaden Borgfield added 10.

The first quarter was huge for SCC, as they jumped to a 20-6 lead. Tough defense led to Oak Ridge turnovers and easy buckets.

Oak Ridge flipped the script in quarter number two with a 20-7 turnaround to trail just 27-26 at the half. A lot of points inside by Borgfield and well-timed threes by Hahs helped with the deficit.

Braves head coach Tim Carlisle said he was glad to have the lead since Oak Ridge battled back so hard.

“I’m never comfortable no matter how big our lead is, we just don't know how to put teams away yet, we're still working on that. Oak Ridge is big, they can shoot and they’re well coached,” Carlisle said. “We knew, coming in here tonight, we were gonna have our backs against the wall anyway. So I'm glad we had that first quarter where we got hot as we were able to get that buffer and a little bit of breathing room.”

Out of halftime, the Blue Jays worked for a 33-33 tie, but SCC ended the quarter on an 11-6 run to lead 44-39 heading into the final frame.

Oak Ridge fought to within two points multiple times throughout the fourth but ultimately turnovers and foul trouble ended things for the Blue Jays and SCC came out on top.

Carlisle said his team held strong on defense despite how close the game got.

“Defense was huge tonight. We played a lot of man defense tonight, we’ve been working on a lot of man in practice, “ Carlisle said. “We just tried to use our athleticism in our favor, if we can get some tipped balls or some steals, we can turn some defense into offense.”

Both teams begin play in the Scott Mississippi Conference Tournament with Scott County Central playing Chaffee at 8 a.m. while Oak Ridge will battle Scott City at 11:15 a.m. The games will be at Scott City High School.