East Lawrence survives Red Bay rally

J.R. Tidwell/FCT Senior Tra Elliott (3) makes a move around a defender from East Lawrence Thursday night at the Hatton Christmas Tournament. Elliott contributed one of Red Bay’s 45 points.

HATTON —Each year Hatton hosts a Christmas basketball tournament, and this year’s variation has only Red Bay from Franklin County but several schools from Lawrence County as well as some from Colbert and Marion Counties.

The Red Bay Tigers had a day one  60-56 win over the Phillips Bears, so that meant they would face the East Lawrence Eagles, a Class 4A team, on day two of the tourney.

East Lawrence got out to a large lead rather quickly Thursday night, but the Tigers made a late run to cut the deficit down to as few as six points.

However, East Lawrence would hang on to prevail 52-45 over the 2A Tigers.

“We dug ourselves such a hole early in the game that we couldn’t get out of it,” Red Bay head coach Greg Cash said.

“That is as bout as bad a first half as we have had all season. We missed 6-8 layups and we didn’t get rebounds. We played hard in the second half, though.”

Red Bay could not get any shots to fall early on in the contest, as East Lawrence had amassed a 13-5 advantage by the end of the first quarter.

It looked as if the Tigers would be unable to score in double digits by halftime because of their shooting woes, and the Eagles took a 29-12 lead into intermission.

Red Bay held its own against their larger opponent for the rest of the contest, even outscoring East Lawrence 19-10 in the fourth quarter.

However, the early deficit was too much to overcome, and the Eagles came away victorious.

Michael Ramirez led Red Bay in scoring with 15 points. Austin Thorn had 9 and Levi Humphres and Bradley Brooks tied with 6. Barry Reach and Kyle Fuller totaled 3 each, Colt Hardin added 2 and Tra Elliott contributed 1.