Danville boys, Priceville girls take home the biggest trophies

Jan. 23—The Danville boys and Priceville girls are the champions of Morgan County.

Both teams won championships Saturday night at West Morgan. The teams also made some history.

The Priceville girls won their first ever county championship with a 66-37 win over Falkville

"We've had a lot of good players and good teams come through our program," Priceville coach Terrie Nelson said. "For this to be our first county championship is pretty special."

Danville beat Priceville, 49-46, in the boys championship game. It's the first county championship for the Hawks since 1992 when Wayne Bowling was coach.

"I was 13 years old when Danville won the last one," Danville coach Scott Ellis said. "I told my players that if we had to go another 30 years to win another one I won't be around because I'll be 77 years old."

The boys game featured the No. 7 ranked 3A team in Danville (18-5) and the No. 5 4A team in Priceville (16-5).

The Priceville girls (16-4) are ranked No. 6 in the 4A state rankings.

"Hopefully the good momentum we get from this win will carry over into the postseason," Nelson said.

Saturday's games followed a dramatic Friday that saw both varsity games ending with game-winning shots.

First, Falkville junior Liza Wallace hit a 3-pointer at the buzzer to beat West Morgan, 47-44. Wallace's shot came just seconds after West Morgan's Ansley Terry hit a 3 to tie the semifinal game.

In the boys game, it was Priceville's Chris Thomas with the game-winning shot to give the Bulldogs a 55-54 win over West Morgan. The Bulldogs had trailed since the first quarter.

Danville boys 49, Priceville 46: The Hawks led 20-11 after the first quarter and 25-24 at halftime. Danville led 36-31 after three quarters and built the lead to nine before Priceville chipped away at the end to trim the margin to three.

"Really proud of our players," Ellis said. "They do a great job of making me look like I know how to coach."

Witten Morgan led the Hawks with 22 points. He had 16 in the first half. JoJo Whisenant, Kohl Randolph and Carter Holladay each had seven points.

Jake Langlois led Priceville with 11 points. Samuel Holmes had nine and Josh Greenhill added seven.

Priceville girls 66, Falkville 33: The Bulldogs came out smoking hot scoring 30 points in the first quarter of Saturday's finals

In that first quarter, Priceville's Zoey Benson and Leslie Hames each scored nine points. Lauren Hames added seven.

"We were really rockin in the first half," Nelson said.

The Bulldogs led 43-12 at halftime and 57-24 after three quarters.

Leslie Hames finished with 18 points. Benson scored 15 and Laura Hames had nine. Priceville had nine players in the scoring column.

Ellie Cate Hill led Falkville (10-13) with 18 points.

"We came out flat and didn't really get into our offense until the second half," Falkville coach Jonathan Lacy said. "Priceville has a really good team."

This was Falkville's first trip to the girls championship game since 1986. That was the first year the boys and girls tournaments were held together.

Falkville lost that night to Hartselle, which was led by Jeaniece Slater with 14 points. Slater is Nelson's sister and is a Priceville assistant coach.

Falkville girls 47, West Morgan 44 on Friday: The Blue Devils led 22-13 at halftime and were up 29-20 after three quarters. Both offenses came alive in the fourth quarter with West Morgan outscoring Falkville 24-18.

Hill led Falkville with 15 points. Abby Grace Tomlin had 14 points and eight rebounds.

West Morgan (5-11) got 16 points from Brenna Howard and 13 from Abby Lindsay.

Priceville boys 55, West Morgan 54 on Friday: The heroics for Thomas came after West Morgan missed two free throws with just seconds left. Priceville went down the floor in a hurry with Jake Langlois finding Thomas open on the block. The ball went through the net as the buzzer sounded.

Thomas led Priceville with 17 points, including eight in the fourth quarter. Elijah Hopkins scored 10 and Cole Lindeman had eight.

West Morgan got 11 points each from Carson Muse, Skyler Hutto and Jalen Fletcher. Jordan Johnson had 10 points.

— david.elwell@decaturdaily.com or 256-340-2395. Twitter @DD_DavidElwell.