Summer league basketball sizzles on court

By SHELIA MADER
Floridan Correspondent
Published: June 14, 2008

Summer basketball continues to heat up this year as four teams took to the hardwoods at the Marianna High School gym Thursday night.

In game one, the experienced Port St. Joe Sharks dealt the Sneads Pirates 64-39 loss in the first game of the afternoon.

Chipley returned the favor to Sneads in game two, handing the Sharks a 50-41 loss. At the half, it was Chipley 36-27 over the Sharks.

The lead went to 11 before St. Joe answered with consecutive buckets and narrowed the deficit to seven. Chipley countered with a 6-0 run to make it a 46-37 game. Both teams continued to battle before the final buzzer sounded to give Chipley the victory.

In the third game of the evening, it was Sneads over Graceville 51-47.

It took Sneads less than a minute to put up the first points of the game but the lead was short lived as Graceville answered to make it a 2-2 game with just a minute off the clock. Sneads answered with nine straight points before Graceville picked up its next basket to bring the game to 11-4 with 14:25 remaining in the first half of play.

Two quick buckets by the Pirates were answered by a 6-0 Tiger run narrowing the lead to 15-10. At the half it was Sneads up 27-16 over Graceville.

The Pirates put up the first buckets of the second half, a three point shot to increase the lead to 13 but the Tigers countered with a three of their own. The two teams continued to trade buckets with Graceville narrowing the lead to 42-35 with five minutes to go in the game. Sneads picked up a basket but Graceville added three. With less than a minute on the clock, Graceville nailed a three-pointer to make it a two-point game.

Sneads drew a foul but couldn’t execute with nine seconds on the clock.

The final game of the night pitted Graceville against Chipley. Graceville played three games at Chipola earlier in the day before moving their game to MHS for an additional two games. The fifth game took its toll on the Tigers as Chipley handed them a 61-37 lead.

Games continue Tuesday night Marianna High School with Marianna taking on Chipley at 4 p.m., followed by Chipley and Bonifay at 5.

At 6, Marianna will face off against county rival Sneads with Sneads and Bonifay rounding out the night at 7.