The Christmas spirit was in full effect Tuesday afternoon at Kilgore High School: the officials were in an especially giving mood.
A handful of technical fouls were given out to both Kilgore and Lindale Tuesday, in the very-important District 16-4A opener for both teams. It was coach Jeff Coleman’s Kilgore Bulldogs, though, that rose above it, and held off the Eagles for a 45-36 win.
Kilgore’s Lady Bulldogs fell to Lindale on the road on Tuesday, and both teams are now off for Christmas, both to compete in holiday tournaments in the coming week.
The Bulldogs play in a tournament in Paris; they open Tuesday at 1:30 p.m. in a pool-play game against Canton. The Lady Bulldogs play in a tournament in Hallsville, and they have one of the first games, a 9 a.m. tip-off against Whitehouse.
Kilgore boys: The Bulldogs have been up and down so far in the young season, but that’s what Coleman uses the non-district portion of his season for each year: to experiment, to tinker, to find the best lineup combinations to have his team ready for a district run.
So, for all intent and purpose, the ‘Dogs are 1-0.
They’re off the rest of the week for Christmas, and then they’ll play in the 11{sup}th{/sup} annual Farmers Bank and Trust Paris Holiday Tournament on Monday and Tuesday. Kilgore has had a great deal of success in this tournament in previous seasons under Coleman. See more below.
Lindale basketball is always scrappy, and that was certainly the case again Tuesday afternoon, as Walter Smith and Justin Farris both stepped back to hit three-pointers in the first period. Kilgore’s C. Jay Ingram sank a couple of free throws to get the ‘Dogs within four, 14-10, at the end of the first.
Smith hit another three to give Lindale a 17-10 lead about a minute into the second period, and that would be the largest lead the Eagles would have the entire game. Ingram fired back with a three of his own less than a minute later, and then Ingram and Jake Thompson each hit two free throw shots to tie the game at 17 midway through the period.
Ingram and Lindale’s Colby Wood traded two more three-point shots, and then Thomas Hattaway, having bounced back nicely from a knee injury earlier this year, hit a buzzer-beater right before the half, off an inbounds pass from Ingram. That sent the game to halftime tied up at 22-all.
It was defense, defense, defense in the third quarter, but Kilgore got a bucket each from Hattaway, then Ingram, scraping their way in front by a slim 26-24 margin; Lindale’s Smith was hit with a technical that allowed Hattaway to give the Bulldogs a one-point edge, 28-27, at the end of the third.
In the first minute of the fourth, Thompson appeared to have hit a shot and draw a foul, but was called for an offensive foul instead. Coleman was hit with a technical, but Wood missed both free throws, and on top of that, the Eagles couldn’t capitalize on the following possession.
But Kilgore did, with Hattaway hitting two more free throws, the beginning of an 8-0 run by the Bulldogs that blew the game open: Hattaway’s two free throws, back-to-back buckets by Thompson, and then two free throws by Ingram after a technical was called on the Lindale coaching staff.
That all added up to a 38-27 KHS lead.
Lindale would stay around, though, on a bucket by Cole Collinsworth, a pair of free throws by Smith, and a three by Farris. That three-pointer, with 47 seconds left, got the Eagles within seven.
But Kilgore would hear nothing of a Lindale comeback.
The Bulldogs ran clock, flipping the ball around until finally, Bobby King hit two free throws to give KHS a 45-36 lead with 38 seconds left, the eventual final score. King went 5-of-6 from the line in the game’s final two minutes to help Kilgore ice it. Lindale had been unbeaten in road games prior to Tuesday’s loss to the Bulldogs.
Ingram led Kilgore with 19 points. Hattaway added 12. Thompson had seven. King had five, all from the free throw line. Jaden Sanders had two.
Now, briefly, Kilgore shifts its focus to the tournament in Paris.
The teams in the tournament this year, in addition to Paris and Kilgore, are Canton, Commerce, Hope (Ark.), Krum, Maud, Pine Tree, Waxahachie Life, Boulder Creek (Arizona), Cleburne, Greenville, Marshall, North Lamar, Venus, and Willis.
Kilgore is in pool D, with Canton, Commerce and Maud. Pool A is Paris, Cleburne, Venus and Willis; pool B is Boulder Creek, North Lamar, Marshall and Krum; and Pool C is Waxahachie Life, Greenville, PT and Hope.
The top two teams in each pool will move to the championship bracket; the third place teams in each pool play in the gold bracket; and the fourth-place teams move to the silver bracket. There are tiebreakers in place: head-to-head, of course; total margin of victory; fewest points allowed; and finally, a coin flip.
Tournament games begin at noon on Tuesday, with North Lamar facing Boulder Creek, Marshall taking on Krum, and Commerce facing Maud. As mentioned earlier, Kilgore’s first game in the tournament is against Canton on Tuesday at 1:30 p.m., in the second tier of games.
The Bulldogs will play again at 7 p.m. Tuesday night against Maud, and then their final pool game is at 11 a.m. Wednesday against Commerce. The final pool games will be played Wednesday at 12:30, and then after a two-hour break, bracket play will start around 4.
Kilgore girls: Kilgore’s Lady Bulldogs fell to 0-2 in district play on Tuesday, losing at Lindale, 77-17.
The Lady ‘Dogs are in the Fidelity Communications Holiday Classic tournament in Hallsville on Monday and Tuesday, and then back in action at home on Tuesday, Jan. 4, as district play resumes against Chapel Hill. That will be a 5 p.m. freshmen start, with junior varsity and varsity to follow.
As mentioned earlier, Kilgore opens the Fidelity Classic on Monday morning at 9 a.m. against Whitehouse, in gym one. And then they play against at 1:30 p.m. against Atlanta, in gym two.
On Tuesday, the Lady ‘Dogs play Longview at 1:30 p.m. in gym two, and then at 4:30, they’ll play Daingerfield in gym one.