The Thomas E. Edwards Tigers are winning one playoff game at a time, following last week’s impressive 59-22 victory at home against Choctaw County. This Saturday at 2:30 p.m. the Tigers will travel to Northeast Mississippi Community College to face the Coahoma County Red Panthers, who are currently 28-4 overall, while Thomas E. Edwards stands at 25-7.
In the Choctaw County win, Samuel Jefferson led the team with 30 points, six rebounds, three steals and two assists. Tyondris Willis followed with 17 points. The Tigers outscored the Chargers 13-7 in the first quarter and 23-0 in the second. They fell 8-9 in the third, followed by a 15-8 fourth-quarter surge.
“The plan was to come out and hit them hard and hit them quick so we can get ahead and start playing for the next game,” Coach Anthony Davis said. “I think our guys came out and played defense really well. And like I said, we've been preaching defense, you know, since we started. And I think they came out and played defense really, really well for us on Saturday.”
Now the Tigers travel to Northeast Community College tomorrow for the quarterfinal round of MHSAA Playoffs at 2:30 p.m. to face Coahoma County, a team they lost to earlier in the season, 45-41, in a tournament in Clarksdale. Coahoma County defeated Alcorn County last week, 53-24, to advance.
“Big game for us. As you know, this is the game that'll get us to the semifinals. Guys have been working hard all week. They know what's at stake, and so they've been practicing pretty hard,” Coach Davis said. “Yeah, we played them earlier in the season, gave up a lead, and they ended up beating us.”
The Tigers have been practicing on some large area basketball courts at Mississippi Delta Community College and at Delta State University to get used to the bigger arenas and get a handle on the depth perception of the larger space.
“We want to get a little shooting around to get acclimated to the rims in the open area,” he said. “We match up well with Coahoma and this time I think the outcome will be a little different.”
Coach Davis isn’t putting in anything special for Coahoma, he’s just getting his guys well-grounded in their own game.
“We're going to come out and play. We're going to continue to play our game. We just want to try to polish up on us, try to make sure that we're good. And instead of trying to plan for them, we just got to make sure we polish up on our end to make sure we execute to the best of our ability. I think if we do that, I think everything else will take care of itself.”
A win at Northeast and the Tigers will be headed to Jackson for the rest of the MHSAA playoffs – the semi-finals and finals.
“There's three left (including Coahoma.) And our motto is taking it one game at a time. Survive and advance.”
