By Stephen Dawkins

The coaches in Corey Clements’ life had a great influence on him.

Clements resigned as Thorsby’s basketball coach after five seasons but hopes he left the same kind of impression on his players.

“Probably the most important people for me growing up were my dad and the people that coached me,” Clements said.

Clements, 34, said he decided to resign so he could spend more time with his 3-year-old daughter, Molly.

“You miss a lot,” Clements said. “The thing about basketball that’s different than football is it’s two or three nights a week, and you’ve got five teams using one gym so you might not be done with practice until late.

“There were times, when we would play on Thursday and Friday, that I would put [Molly] to bed on Wednesday and not see her again until Saturday. That gets old.”

The resignation was accepted by the Chilton County Board of Education at Tuesday’s meeting.

Clements said the decision was still difficult because of all the benefits of the position, such as meeting new people. Clements said his favorite part of the job was getting to spend time with the players and be a part of their lives, as his coaches were his life.

Clements also struggled with the decision because he has been a part of Thorsby basketball for so long. As both a player and coach, Clements has been involved with the program for 18 years.

“It makes it real hard,” he said. “You think about all the people you played with and all the kids you coached. Maybe I’m just sentimental, but it still meant a lot to me to see that maroon and white jersey.”

Clements will still be a fixture at the school, teaching and coaching golf and football.

So, there will be more opportunities for Clements to impact the lives of students like the coaches he remembers so well: Barry Barnett, Clements’ youth league baseball coach for eight years; Jerry Stephens; Marvin Green, Clements’ first high school basketball coach; current Thorsby principal Russ Bryan; and Russell Ricks, who coached Thorsby baseball and basketball during Clements’ senior seasons.

“I loved my coaches, and I hope that the kids will feel that way about me.”

By Stephen Dawkins

One of the best seasons ever for the Thorsby girls basketball program ended Thursday with a 48-43 loss to Ohatchee in a Northeast Sub-Regional game.
Thorsby couldn’t have asked for more: two talented teams playing a back-and-forth game in front of a large, vocal home crowd.
“I thought these girls gave this community something to be proud of,” Thorsby coach Ab Argent said after the loss. “We’re glad the crowd showed up, and I don’t think the girls disappointed them.
“Our girls fought their rear ends off. I couldn’t be prouder of them.”
The Thorsby fans that gave the team an ovation when it emerged from the locker room probably shared Argent’s sentiment.
The Rebels (21-2) faced large deficits at several points of the game but fought back each time.
The visitors went on a 10-0 toward the end of the first half and led 22-13, but Thorsby’s Sharonda Cooper scored five points in four seconds to get Thorsby back in the game.
Cooper, with 18 points, and Amanda Hubbard, with 15 points, did most of the damage for the hosts.
Thorsby led 29-26 at the end of the third period, but Ohatchee (24-6) took a 46-40 lead with 52 seconds remaining in the game on a strong drive by Jasmine Crook that resulted in the bucket and a free throw.
Hubbard drained a 3-pointer with 17 seconds left to keep hope alive, but a free throw by Ohatchee’s Laneshia Anderson iced the victory.
Crook, who scored a game-high 25 points, and Anderson, who dominated the paint most of the night, posed problems for Thorsby.
“We knew coming in we couldn’t let 23 and 34 (Crook and Anderson) beat us,” Argent said. “Late in the game, we just couldn’t…Big-time players step up in big-time games, and that’s what they did.”

By Stephen Dawkins

Thorsby’s girls on Saturday used clutch play late to overcome a sluggish start and defeat Shades Mountain Christian, 33-28, in the championship game of the Class 2A, Area 9 basketball tournament.

The win gives Thorsby the right to host Ohatchee in a regional game beginning at 7 p.m. on Thursday.

Thorsby, hosting the tournament because it went unbeaten in area play during the regular season, failed to score in the first period but held its visitors to only two points in the second period.

“I think we may have been pressing a little bit,” Thorsby coach Ab Argent said. “Our girls weren’t in any kind of rhythm.

“Give them credit, now, I think we got their best shot. We showed some heart there coming back.”

The score was 9-0 Shades after one period but 13-11 Thorsby at halftime and was close the rest of the way.

Shades Mountain retook the lead on a Hannah Wainwright jump shot with 4:26 remaining in the final period, but Thorsby responded and led by as many as five points late in the fourth period, on a free throw by Sharonda Cooper.

Thorsby (21-1) would still need three crucial rebounds and two even more important free throws—all in the last 12 seconds—by Nicole Barrett to seal the win.

Shades Mountain (14-14) had the basketball down 31-28 with 9.7 seconds remaining, but a 3-pointer was missed and Barrett eventually grabbed the loose ball.

Barrett, who didn’t play last year and comes off the bench this year, also rebounded a missed Thorsby free throw with 1.6 seconds left, was fouled and then made both shots from the charity stripe to put the game away.

“The thing is, I tell them all the time, ‘There’s going to come a point where somebody has got to step up and help this team,’” Argent said. “I always tell them, ‘You don’t know who it’s going to be.’”

Amanda Hubbard—who was named to the all-tournament team along with teammates Johnna Doody, Ashlin Hilyer and tournament Most Valuable Player Sharonda Cooper—was Thorsby’s leading scorer with 11 points.

Cooper scored nine points.

Wainwright led Shades Mountain with eight points.

Now, the Rebels are preparing for Ohatchee, who has won more than 20 games this season.

The Indians rely on the inside-out combination of post player and 6-footer Laneshia Anderson and guard Jasmine Crook, who is the defending Class 2A state champion in the 200 Meters.

By Stephen Dawkins

Thorsby’s boys basketball team on Jan. 28 won its third game in its last four outings, and the girls kept their special season headed in the right direction.
The Thorsby boys had lost nine of their last 10 before a 73-60 win at Billingsley Jan. 22 propelled them to their current streak.
On Thursday, the Rebels (6-10) beat the Bears again, this time by a 65-54 score.
Thorsby’s girls team, meanwhile, improved its record to 17-1 with a 62-43 win over Billingsley.
The Rebels are on a roll at the right time because area tournaments begin this week.
Shades Mountain Christian will host the Class 2A, Area 9 boys tournament.
Thorsby plays Shades at 7:30 p.m. Friday. The winner of that game will play the Fultondale-Vincent winner at 7 p.m. on Feb. 8
Thorsby’s girls will host their tournament.
The Rebels play Fultondale at 7 p.m. Thursday. If they win, they would play the winner Vincent-Shades Mountain game at 5 p.m. Saturday.
Back to last week’s contest. Eight Bears scored in the game, and seven of them scored in the fourth period, which saw Billingsley outscore their hosts 22-13. But that still wasn’t enough to pull out a win because Thorsby held a 52-32 edge after three periods.
Marcus Bray, Andrew Farris and Evan Bryan did most of the damage for Thorsby. They scored 19, 18 and 15 points, respectively.
Raphael Brooks led Billingsley with 18 points.
In the girls game, Thorsby’s lead was built mainly in the first quarter, when the hosts took a 21-10 lead. Sharonda Cooper scored nine points in the frame and wound up leading all scorers with 31 points.
Ashlin Hilyer was Thorsby’s second-leading scorer with 10 points.
Lori Davis scored 13 points for Billingsley.

By Stephen Dawkins

Thorsby’s girls basketball team last week rebounded from its first loss of the season with its most important win of the season.
The Rebels (15-1, 5-0 area) earned the right to host the Class 2A, Area 9 tournament with a 42-21 win over area foe Shades Mountain Christian on Jan. 19.
The team with the best area record hosts the tournament.
Thorsby bounced back after losing its first game of the season—to Maplesville on Jan. 16 in the championship game of the county tournament—in its last outing.
“We played as well as I’ve seen us play,” coach Ab Argent said. “I was very pleased and proud with the way the girls responded after losing their first and then coming back to win this one.”
Thorsby’s Sharonda Cooper led all scorers with 20 points in the game, and teammate Ashlin Hilyer scored 10 points.
On Jan. 22, Thorsby’s girls struggled at times but eventually put away a gritty Billingsley team, 58-45.
Billingsley held an early 6-4 lead, but Thorsby gained a 12-10 advantage at the end of one period.
On the first possession of the second quarter, Cooper stole a pass and then layed it in. That play sparked an 8-1 Thorsby run, and Billingsley wouldn’t record a field goal for the first 3 minutes of the frame.
The Bears trailed 22-12 before Viola Tyus’s lay-up, but the hosts wouldn’t go easily.
Billingsley cut it to 26-21 in the second quarter on a Mary Beth Walker 2, but Thorsby led 31-22 at halftime and 45-30 after three quarters.
Lori Davis scored 19 points for Billingsley, and Viola Tyus had 12 points.
Cooper led all scorers with 24 points.
Hilyer scored 14 points, including going 4-for-4 from the free throw line in the fourth quarter to help ice the game.
Thorsby’s Amanda Hubbard scored 11 points.

Thorsby boys win two, drop one
Thorsby’s boys basketball team last week defeated both Billingsley (73-60) and Isabella (59-50) but lost to Class 2A No. 3 Shades Mountain Christian (50-41).
The Rebels trailed most of the game against Shades, on Jan. 19, but took a 31-29 lead in the third period before fading.
“The boys played really, really hard,” coach Corey Clements said.
Evan Bryan and Andrew Farris scored 13 points each.
Against Billingsley on Jan. 22, timely 3-point shooting helped the Rebels (5-9) to the win.
The game marked the first time the two schools, which are separated by about 20 miles, competed in basketball in several years.
The contest was close for most of the first period. With about 1 minute left, however, Bryan drained consecutive 3-pointers to give his team a 19-11 lead going into the second period.
Bryan is a regular contributor from beyond the arc, but the Rebels also got some long distance shots from an unexpected source.
“We got a big boost from Blake Elkins,” Clements said. “He hit three 3’s. He’s never done that before.”
Billingsley, meanwhile, went cold from long- and short-distance in the second half.
The Bears made one 3-pointer in 10 attempts in the half. They were 10-for-36 on regular field goals and were 7-for-18 from the free throw line for the game.
Marcus Bray posted 18 points and 15 rebounds for Thorsby. Farris also had a double-double-his read 12 points and 12 rebounds.
Bryan scored 16 points.
Raphael Brooks and Carlos Caver scored 16 points each for Billingsley.

By Stephen Dawkins

Thorsby’s girls basketball team on Saturday suffered its first loss of the season.
Even worse, the 47-39 defeat came in the championship game of the county basketball tournament.
But not all was lost. Coach Ab Argent said he thinks the experience, though it didn’t end with the Rebels holding the first-place trophy, will still benefit the team.
“I thought it was good for our girls to play a game like that, with a big crowd and a lot of pressure, because we have area games this week against Vincent and Shades Mountain,” Argent said. “I thought the difference was we lost our composure there with about 5 or 6 minutes left.
“Give them credit; they went on a little run.”
The game went back and forth, and neither team led by more than three points until Kiana Andrews drained a 3-point shot after Maplesville rebounded a missed free throw with 6:47 remaining in the game.
That shot gave the Devils a 33-27 lead and sparked a run that saw them build a 16-point lead with 3:30 left.
Thorsby cut the lead to eight points on a runner by Ashlin Hilyer with 1:10 on the clock, but it wasn’t enough.
Sharonda Cooper led Thorsby with 17 points.
Amanda Hubbard added 10 points.
Maplesville’s Zuri Nix led all scorers with 23 points.

By Stephen Dawkins

One week ago, this column was about the virtues of the county basketball tournament and how I was looking forward to it.
This time, regrettably, we’ll focus on what went wrong with the tournament.
The event took an ugly turn on Jan. 11, the first day of the tournament, when a skirmish broke out during the Thorsby-Verbena boys game. I call it a skirmish instead of a fight because I’m not sure a punch was thrown, much less landed.
But one player from each team was ejected from the game—and earned their schools a nice little fine from the Alabama High School Athletics Association to go along with it.
The game was emotionally charged before the incident and continued that way even after the officials and the coaches tried to calm things down.
This isn’t about blaming anyone, but the players should understand that events like this are a reflection on our county. I don’t know if there were many, or any, out-of-towners at the gym that night, but, if so, I’m sure they got the wrong impression of Chilton County.
Parents and fans—you know, the adults—of these two respectable schools had a fine opportunity to teach some students how not to behave. No doubt many did so, but a minority instead joined in the fight by posting comments on www.clantonadvertiser.com that led to us disabling comments on the story.
Acting out in a moment of emotion, like the players did, is bad but easily forgivable. Acting like a school-age child, when you have someone of that very age looking up to you, is disturbing behavior.
Hundreds of people representing six different schools have watched the basketball games, and any time that many people get together, something will surely go wrong.
But how we react to difficult situations is what defines us.

– Dawkins is the sports editor for The North Chilton Advertiser.

Thorsby’s girls basketball team on Friday advanced to the county tournament championship game with a 49-14 win over Isabella.

The No. 2 seed Rebels will play No. 1 seed Maplesville at 5 p.m. Saturday. The Red Devils defeated Jemison on Thursday in the other semifinal game.

Maplesville could pose the most significant threat to date to Thorsby’s perfect record.

It was never close in the win over Isabella. Thorsby led 21-2 at one point early in the second period. The Rebels were up 29-7 at halftime and 38-12 at the end of the third period in a physical game.

Thorsby’s Sharonda Cooper led all scorers with 14 points.

Teammate Amanda Hubbard wasn’t far behind with 12 points.

By Stephen Dawkins

Chilton County’s boys and Maplesville’s girls basketball teams were given No. 1 seeds by the coaches in this week’s county tournament.
On Thursday, both teams showed why.
CCHS breezed by No. 4 seed Thorsby, 79-33, and Maplesville overcame a sluggish first half to top Jemison 55-35.
Thorsby pushed Chilton, which wound up winning its seventh consecutive tournament championship, for three periods in last year’s tournament, but the Tigers on Thursday raced out to an 11-2 lead and never looked back.
“I thought we shot the ball better tonight,” said CCHS coach Donnie Hand, whose team was just shy of 50 percent from the field. “We shot today before the game a bunch. We start doing that after the break.”
The Tigers (9-7) led 25-7 at the end of the first period, 45-16 at halftime and 67-30 going into the final frame.
CCHS’s Taylor Hughes filled up the stat sheet to the tune of a game-high 22 points, 11 rebounds, three steals and three assists.
Teammate Josh Williams contributed 19 points, four assists and six steals.
Nelson Williams dished out six assists.
Both Evan Bryan and Andrew Farris scored 10 points for Thorsby.
CCHS plays the winner of Friday’s Jemison-Maplesville game at 6:30 p.m. Saturday for the county championship.
Maplesville’s girls actually trailed No. 5 seed Jemison, 17-14 at halftime, but Ebony Childers stole the ball at halfcourt and finished with a layup to give the Red Devils (8-3) a 29-23 lead with 12 seconds remaining in the third quarter.
Jemison would never threaten again.
In the second half, Maplesville established Childers down low on offense and utilized Zuri Nix’s length at the top of a zone defense to create turnovers and easy baskets.
“We played better defense in the second half, and the shots we were missing in the first half we started making,” coach Eric Bailey said.
Childers scored 13 points and pulled down 19 rebounds. Keshia Bailey also scored 13 points to go along with five steals and five rebounds.
Nix was good for 11 points.
Both members of Jemison’s Mims duo had solid games. Codi posted 14 points, and Kelsey scored 13.
The Devils will play the winner of Friday’s Thorsby-Isabella game at 5 p.m. Saturday for the girls championship.

By Stephen Dawkins

Everything went right for Thorsby, and everything went wrong for Verbena.
Thorsby defeated their county rival, 76-53, on Monday in the first round of the county basketball tournament.
This was the teams’ third meeting of the season, and the other two had been close.
But the Rebels on Monday used a full-court press defense and an aggressive offense to lead 23-10 after one period, 41-18 at halftime and 58-32 going into the fourth.
Marcus Bray led THS with 17 points, and teammate Evan Bryan scored 16 points.
Thorsby plays Chilton County at 7 p.m. Thursday.