Hurston leads St. James boys basketball to win over Saints

St. James boys basketball coach Monty Carr called a timeout in the fourth quarter to gather his squad, which was trailing by five points with under four minutes to play.

Soon after, Sharks senior Jackson Hurston simply took over.

Hurston contributed to St. James’ final eight points – including the game-winner – to finish with a game-high 14, leading the Sharks to a 47-45 win Tuesday over Christian Academy of Myrtle Beach.

“Jackson Hurston came up huge. He just went nuts,” St. James senior Zach Werba said. “He hit a lot of layups and made some big shots at the end to help us pull out this win.”

In the final minutes, Hurston knew a lot was on the line and he and his teammates got the job done after trailing the entire game.

“I was just thinking that we needed to excute as a team or we weren't gonna win the game,” Hurston said.

After the timeout by Carr, Hurston immediately hit a 3-pointer to cut the Saints’ lead to 42-40 with a little over three minutes to play. Then, after Christian Academy hit two quick free throws, Hurston hit a layup to bring St. James within 2 again. Saints sophomore Robert Guyton hit a free throw, but Hurston countered with another trey to tie the game 45-all.

Hurston grabbed the rebound after a failed Christian Academy possession, and St. James held the ball for the final shot.

With just 15 seconds to play, the Sharks called their final timeout. Then, Hurston got the inbounds pass, drove to the hoop and – on a perfect pass – fed the ball to senior Cole Gallagher, who scored a layup to put the Sharks ahead by the final margin.

“We never drew up [a play] to specifically dish it to [Gallagher],” Hurston said. “But we drew up a situation to get me the ball and to clear out and whatever happens, happens.”

It certainly worked out for the Sharks, and Carr is appreciative of his team’s – and specifically Hurston’s – ability to finish games.

“Jackson Hurston made some big buckets and that was an unselfish play to Cole Gallagher that gave us our only lead of the game,” Carr said.

St. James and the Saints have played in some pretty exciting games over the years and Tuesday was no different. Carr said he has a lot of respect for Christian Academy coach Darren Gore and his program.

“Christian Academy is a very good, young basketball team. They’re down one starter and they need to get a lot more respect for how talented and gifted they are,” said Carr, whose team fell to Christian Academy 59-58 last year. “We were very fortunate last year and even this year to get wins against them. Last year we beat them at home, but came here and they beat us. Even this year, they had us.

“My guys never quit and showed a whole lot of perseverence through some adversity and they kept it together.”

While there was a lot of excitement at the end of the game, the Sharks had to fight their way out of a big early deficit. Christian Academy opened the game on a 16-8 run and pushed its lead to 12 at halftime. But the Sharks persevered and outscored the Saints 33-16 in the second half, due in large part to Hurston’s performance.

“We came out slow,” Werba said. “We didn’t practice so well yesterday and just played slow at the beginning but we turned it up in the second half.”

Meanwhile, a pair of freshman stepped up for the Saints. Michael Green and Jalen Matthews had 12 points apiece for Christian Academy, which fell to St. James 52-51 last week as well. The youth-laden Saints are still without senior star point guard Bernard Jones, however.

“We’re just young and immature; we don’t know how to close out games yet,” said Gore, who has just two seniors in his lineup. “We act like we haven’t been there, because we haven’t. These guys haven’t been there. They’ve seen what’s gone on before them, but they’re ninth and tenth graders, primarily. That’s just kind of what you get sometimes. We lost over at their place because we couldn’t make foul shots and you saw their seniors step up tonight. [Hurston] hit some huge shots at the end of the game; that’s the difference between a senior-laden team and a young one.”

The Saints still have quite some time to get it together before SCISA Region III-AA play starts, and they’ll hopefully have Jones back by then.

“We’re talented. But youth and immaturity is mainly what we’re dealing with right now,” Gore said. “Like I told these guys, every time we play, we do something a little bit better. We’re not worried about peaking in December, we want to peak in February.”

St. James will travel to take on Waccamaw on Friday, and Werba feels like the Sharks are on top of their game.

“We just want to keep this thing rolling,” Werba said. “We’re playing our hardest out there.”

Said Hurston: “We have a lot of confidence as a team, but our coaches do such a good job of keeping it together and not getting too big of a head. We come out and compete every night like we haven't won a game and we take no team for granted. Especially a very good [Christian Academy] team.”

St. James girls roll to win over Christian Academy

St. James girls basketball coach Stan Patterson was anticipating for Kimmie Hotzelt to get hot Tuesday.

The senior guard didn’t keep her coach waiting very long.

Hotzelt scored 10 of her game-high 17 points in the first quarter, and Bethany Goodrich finished with 10 to lead the Sharks to a dominant 70-36 win over Christian Academy of Myrtle Beach.

“We shot the ball well tonight. We were waiting for Kimmie Hotzelt to break out and she shot the ball well tonight,” St. James coach Stan Patterson said. “We’re just working, trying to get better each and every time out. That’s what our goal is; come January, we want to be ready to go for [Region VII-AAA] play.”

The Sharks opened the game on a 19-4 run and entered halftime with a commanding 46-18 lead. And the team was working in harmony as 11 of St. James’ 12 players contributed.

“I think we played really good as a team. Our starting five came out of the gate just booming,” Hotzelt said. “We were all working together really well, and everyone played their part.”

Shakiesha Jones had a team-high 15 points and Caroline Gore scored 12 for the Saints.

Meanwhile, the Sharks will look to keep things rolling as they head into the CresCom Holiday Invitational at the Myrtle Beach Convention Center, which starts Friday.

“We’re pretty confident,” Hotzelt said. “I think coming off this win and coming off our win last week at Socastee, it’s really boosted our morale. We all believe in each other and believe in ourselves and see where that will take us.”

This story was originally published December 15, 2015 at 11:39 PM with the headline "Hurston leads St. James boys basketball to win over Saints."