TIFTON — In his first athletic competition since a leg injury Oct. 8 in the South Georgia Athletic Conference football championship game, Eighth Street’s Tadric Jackson scored a game-high 22 points to lead the Devils over Coffee Middle, 49-36 Thursday at home.
The win capped off a sweep over the visitors from Douglas, as the Eighth Street girls won by a 41-21 count to stay unbeaten at 11-0.
Many of the players on the court Thursday also played in the football championship game — a game Coffee won 8-7 over the Blue Devils.
Jackson entered the game with 3:10 left in the first half, but playing only 35 seconds after committing two first-quarter fouls. With Coffee leading 5-2, Jackson re-entered the game, and was fouled on a three-point attempt as the first-quarter horn sounded.
Jackson hit all three free throws to tie the game at five.
The game remained a close contest, with the Trojans leading for most of the second quarter behind baskets by Brandon Roe and C.J. Johnson.
A pair of Johnson free throws with 1:55 left gave Coffee a 15-11 lead, when the Devils (9-2) came back with a Jackson bucket.
On the next possession, Jackson stole the ball, and dunked with two hands — tying the game and sending the Blue Devil faithful into a frenzy.
Jackson gave Eighth Street its first lead since early in the first quarter on a free throw — and the Devils went into the locker room with a 16-15 halftime lead.
After the break, the Blue Devils got back-to-back baskets by Ken Dalton to extend the lead to 20-15 with just under a minute off the third-quarter clock.
But Coffee came back with six points of their own to take a 21-20 lead with 2:56 remaining in the period.
From there, Eighth Street scored seven of the final eight points to take a five-point lead into the fourth quarter.
The Trojans pulled to within one point at 31-30 with 3:46 left on a free throw by Roe, but Dalton would score six straight for the Devils to push the game back out to a 37-32 game.
Eighth Street would then get key free throws by Ladarius Stewart and Jackson to take the win.
Jackson went 6-of-6 from the free throw line in the fourth quarter, and finished 14-of-17 from the charity stripe.
Dalton added 10 points for the Devils, and Stewart had six for Eighth Street. Roe led Coffee with 10, and Johnson added nine for the Trojans in a losing effort.
Eighth Street’s girls had little trouble in defeating the Lady Trojans by 20 points, especially after halftime.
The Lady Devils were tied at six at the end of the first period, and led only 15-10 at the half, before outscoring Coffee 26-11 after intermission.
In the ill-fated third quarter, the Trojans were outscored 16-2 by Eighth Street — as the Lady Devils got nine points from Alexis Johnson, and four points from Jessica Savage in the period.
The Lady Devils’ lead grew to as many as 23 points in the fourth quarter.
Johnson led Eighth Street with 14 points, five rebounds and four steals, while Savage added six. Tatianya Smith had five steals, and Staceyanna Murrell chipped in with four points, six rebounds, and four steals.
Eighth Street will travel to Lowndes on Monday.
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