By Mike Hutchens, UC Schools Communications Director
Union City, Tenn.–West Carroll was able to hang with second-ranked Union City for one quarter in Saturday’s Region 7A boys’ quarterfinal game.
After that – as expected – the Golden Tornadoes were easily superior.
UC outscored the War Eagles 40-11 over the middle two periods and got a stellar 38-point effort from Mr. Basketball finalist Malaki Brooks in romping past WC 76-43 at Marty Sisco Gymnasium.
The Twisters’ 14th straight victory sends them into Tuesday’s 6 p.m. semifinals against Middleton (19-7) at UT Martin. The winner of that tilt will lock up a berth in the sectionals and a spot in the regional tourney championship game on Thursday night at Dresden High School.
Union City’s revolving door substitution pattern showcasing depth and intensity gradually wore down West Carroll (7-24) after the visitors stayed close (22-17) for a quarter Saturday.
And Brooks was the offensive catalyst again, erupting for another big scoring night despite playing just 21 minutes. Twice, he converted rare 4-point plays after sinking treys. He made seven 3-pointers in all and keyed runs in the second and third stanzas when the Twisters buried WC.
“We’d seen them make eight 3-pointers in one quarter against Halls, so we knew they were capable of playing with us for stretches,” said UC head coach Shane Sisco, whose squad improved to 26-5 with its latest blowout triumph. “We told our kids to just continue pushing the ball and continue to guard them, and we believed that would take its toll.
“I think you could see that starting to happen there at the end of the second quarter and into the second half. They didn’t play a lot of kids, and fatigue started to set in. It was most evident with them coming up short with their shots and the turnovers.”
The Tornadoes got a nice lift off the bench from DeAngelo Monroe, who made a triple and a deuce late in the opening frame. Brooks, who’d hit for 10 points during a 90-second span to put his team up for good, then fueled a surge of 14 consecutive UC points in the second quarter that prompted his team to ease to a 41-22 halftime lead.
Jack Tully, who had back-to-back blocked shots just before the intermission, converted underneath twice to open the third quarter and ignite a 21-4 flurry. Brooks, who had 25 in the first half, ended his night with 13 markers in the third frame before taking the rest of the night off – along with the other Twister starters with 2:49 showing in the period.
Union City’s biggest lead was 36.
“Defensively, we know how far we go is going to depend on how well we can defend and what kind of work we can do on the glass,” Sisco added. “I thought we were again consistent in those areas tonight, no matter who was in the game.
“It’s going to get a lot more interesting on Tuesday night as we’ll face a very good basketball team that defends with a lot of tenacity and rebounds the ball very well. The hope is the schedule we played early shows up now. We were in a lot of competitive games early, especially the six before Christmas when we played some top-flight opponents. Our practices have been much more challenging as we’ve prepared for that, and we’ve done a lot of situational work as well as getting up and down the floor.
“What we wanted to achieve at the beginning of the season is in front of us next week. It’s up to us now.”