Story By Druw Giamalva

The Douglas Eagles basketball team improved their record to 6-6 on Tuesday night with an emotional 64-62 victory over the St. Clair County Saints.

“I love that atmosphere,” Douglas head coach Skylar Baugh said. “We needed that; we needed a game where it was just you go hard all game long. It was wild the whole game and our guys had to make good decisions and we did. We did make good decisions down the stretch, took care of the ball and made shots. That was huge for us.”

It was a highly contested game from start to finish as both fan bases were loud for the entirety of the game. The scoring was opened up by Douglas’ Treiy Crenshaw who would grab an offensive board and put it back up for two points. Crenshaw would dominate the Saints in the first quarter as he scored eleven first quarter points. The Saints didn’t back down as Brody Carney would have nine first quarter points for the Saints. Douglas would escape the first quarter with a 23-19 lead.

Crenshaw would once again open up the scoring with two made free throws in the second quarter. Despite having a six-point lead at one point, the Eagles lead slipped away as the Saints would go on a 13-5 scoring run to end the first half. The Saints would lead 45-36 to enter the second half.

The Eagles would make a big comeback on the Saints to make it a 53-53 tie at the end of the third quarter. The quarter was led by Crenshaw, Casey Campbell and Avery Smith. Campbell would make two big three-point shots to get Douglas back in the game. Crenshaw would add four third quarter points and Smith would produce multiple offensive rebounds for the Eagles.

The Eagles were able to close out the game due to the hot hand of Campbell who would hit two more three-point shots for the Eagles. With less than two minutes to go and being down 60-58, Campbell would make both of his three-point attempts to make it a 64-60 ballgame. The Saints would score a basket with twenty-four seconds remaining to make it a 64-62 game. After two missed free throws by Douglas with twelve seconds left, the Douglas defense made a big stop to takedown the Saints 64-62.

“We adjusted,” Baugh said. “We adjusted an offense against them, came out, and executed early on that. We knocked down the shots when we had to.”

Next up for Douglas is the Etowah Christmas Classic that the Eagles will participate in on December 27 and 29. Douglas will open up with Cleveland on December 27 at 4:30 and will round it out with a matchup against Glencoe on December 29 at 4:30 p.m. All matchups will be played at Etowah High School.