Early tournament offers experience

A three-day, 34-game basketball classic last weekend was the perfect setting for several local basketball coaches. With the 2006-07 basketball season still in its infancy, the 2006 Garden City Classic offered back-to-back-to-back games and gave teams plenty of experience similar to that of a state tournament format.

"I think teams are getting exactly what they wanted out of an early regular-season tournament like this," Augusta Christian boys coach Marty Griffin said. "You find out a lot about your team in these types of situations."

For the Lions, the tournament couldn't have gone any better. Augusta Christian went a perfect 3-0 with wins over Camden Military, Greenwood Christian and Fox Creek. With a 4-0 overall record, the Lions finished the weekend as the only undefeated boys basketball team in the county.

The weekend was different for the Lady Lions. The Augusta Christian girls basketball team dropped three straight games during the weekend. The hardest loss was a 39-34 defeat at the hands of Thomas Sumter, in which the Lady Lions hit only 18.2 percent from the field in the first half and struggled to find the basketball for most of the game.

After a successful 2005-06 season that saw starting guard Jordan Little take over at times, the Lions are now without last season's star senior and are still looking to fill that offensive void.

"I don't think they were looking for her. I think it was just that Lynlee (Satcher) was looking for Casey (Brush) to step up, and Casey was looking for Whitney (Waters) and Whitney was looking for Lynlee and it went like that," Augusta Christian girls basketball coach Keith Walton said. "They learned you've got to play every day. You can't take quarters off."

Augusta Prep's basketball squads found success over the weekend. The girls basketball team went 2-1 with wins over Greenwood Christian and Dominion Christian. Junior Laura Kopald led all scoring with 74 points in the three games.

Cavaliers sophomore Jim Hull kept his strong offensive game alive with a 33-point performance in a 52-45 win over Dominion Christian on Friday night.