Clarion Ledger Top Performers 12/10-16

Deville Smith, Callaway: Scored 23 points in a 56-46 win over Vicksburg.

Clarion Ledger Boys Super 10 - 12/18/07

1. Starkville (10-0)
2. Lanier (12-1)
3. Picayune (11-0)
4. Moss Point (11-0)
5. Wingfield (14-2)
6. Clinton (13-2)
7. Forest Hill (11-3)
8. Oxford (14-2)
9. Columbus (9-2)
10. New Hope (8-4)

Clinton lost last night to Yazoo City

Class 4A
1. Lanier
2. Picayune
3. Moss Point
4. Forest Hill
5. Oxford

'07-'08 Callaway Chargers Schedule

11/03 Madison Cental Tournament - vs Clinton, L 64 - 59
11/06 vs Bailey, W 62 - 29
11/08 @ Clinton, L 56 - 52
11/13 vs Jim Hill, W 60 - 48
11/15 vs Wingfield, L 64 - 61
11/19 vs Provine, W 64 - 60
11/20 @ Forest Hill, L 74 - 69
11/27 @ Murrah,W 80-63
11/29 Warren Central Tournament,W 70-39 Warren Central
11/30 Warren Central Tournament,W 64-60 Vicksbury
12/04 @ Canton,L
12/07 vs Warren Central,W
12/11 vs Vicksburg,W 63-53
12/14 @ Yazoo City,W 38-36
12/26 JPS Pepsi Tournament
12/27 JPS Pepsi Tournament
12/28 JPS Pepsi Tournament
01/04 vs Yazoo County
01/08 vs Ridgeland
01/11 @ Lanier
01/15 vs Canton
01/18 @ Pearl
01/22 @ Vicksburg
01/25 vs Yazoo City
01/29 @ Yazoo County
02/01 @ Ridgeland
02/05 vs Lanier
02/08 vs Pearl
02/12-15 Division Tournament - Lanier HS
02/18-23 North/South
02/28-03/15 State Tournament

Callaway vs Yazoo City

A perfect night for an upset! Yazoo City is not the type of team that you like to play with a young group. (As I type this I just got a text message saying that Yazoo City beat CL Super 10 #6 Clinton last night.) They sit back in a 2-3 zone and dare you to make a 3. On offense, they are patient. Rarely do they shoot 3's, they pound the ball into their big man and he gets the job done.

We played some 3/4 court zone and backed up into a man once they crossed half court to speed up the tempo. It didn't have much of an effect during the first 3 periods but it finally paid off in the 4th. We hit a stretch where we couldn't score at all but our defense kept coming up with steals to keep them from scoring.

With the clock under a minute, we had just scored to tie the game at 36. We got into our press and they kicked it up to their big man who caught the ball on the wing and attacked the basket. Our charge taker(Phillip Ross) was standing under the basket waiting on him, he decided to pull up instead of trying his luck with senior Phillip Ross. He missed the shot and Q wrestled the ball away from Yazoo City's Jontavious Singleton and we called timeout to set up for the last shot.

We were in our basic spread offense, Q kicked the ball to the wing and cut through. Deville came up top but instead of catching the ball up top he cut to the basket where Ju hit him with a perfect pass. Deville went into his snake maneuver and hit Phillip on the baseline for a layup with 3.9 seconds left.

We have been begging Deville everyday in practice to cut to the basket sometimes instead of just catching it up top everytime. I'm glad he decided to FINALLY do it! I hope the whole team FINALLY starts to do some of the other things that we have been begging them to do!

District: 2-1
Record: 9-5
up next: JPS Tourny-Terry @ Wingfield HS

Callaway vs Vicksburg II

When we beat Vicksburg at the Warren Central Tournament, Coach Brent told our guys that the game didn't count for anything and that Vicksburg would be eager to get back on the court with us. We read the article from the Madison County Herald after they beat Canton. And sure enough, their coach said that they had given away their last two games by not running their offense and playing too much 1 on 1. The Callaway game was included in the games he was referring to.

Our thinking was that our pressure defense got them out of rhytm and forced them to do things that they weren't accustomed to doing. We were playing at home and we figured that we could duplicate the performance that we had the last time we played them. Jonathan Phelps is very good, he got 18 hard earned contested points(15 last game) and should be a very good player at the college level. The guy can flat out score!!! But if you can contain him and limit the effectiveness of thier role players they can be beat.

We did just that and picked up our 8th win of the season. That is the win total of all of last year. Deville stepped up big for us scoring 23 points, most of them while snaking to the basket for layups. Dude is amazing!!! Ju's defense was as good as I have seen it this season. He came up with another big steal to pretty much end any chance at a comeback. Q was in foul trouble for most of the game but he rebounded well and pulled for his teammates from the bench, a trait usually reserved for bench guys. He scored 6 points, his lowest point total of the season.

It was a well coached, well played game. Got to keep it up!

District: 1-1
Record: 8-5
up next: @ Yazoo City

Clarion Ledger Top Performers - 12/3 - 12/9

LaQuinton Ross, Callaway: Scored 31 points in a 63-53 win over Warren Central.

Boys Basketball Super 10 - 12/11/07

1. Starkville (8-0)
2. Lanier (9-1)
3. Picayune (8-0)
4. Moss Point (9-0)
5. Columbus (7-1)
6. Wingfield (11-2)
7. Clinton (11-2)
8. Forest Hill (9-3)
9. New Hope (6-3)
10. Oxford (12-2)

Class-by-class rankings

Class 5A
1. Starkville
2. Columbus
3. Wingfield
4. Clinton
5. Biloxi

Class 4A
1. Lanier
2. Picayune
3. Moss Point
4. Forest Hill
5. New Hope

Class 3A
1. Humphreys County
2. Pass Christian
3. Columbia
4. Aberdeen
5. East Side

Class 2A
1. Hinds AHS
2. Baldwyn
3. Scott Central
4. Newton
5. Coahoma County

Class 1A
1. Myrtle
2. Mount Olive
3. Broad Street
4. East Webster
5. Durant

Callaway v Warren Central II

What a difference a week makes! This was definitely not the same Warren Central team we played on last week. We beat them by 30 points at their gym and they made up their minds that they were going to beat us by 30 at our gym.

They came out the gate playing inspired basketball. Their coaching staff put in a great game plan and a lot of the things that we did successfully against them a week ago did not work tonight. Our traps were always a step late and their guards were making us pay by splitting the traps and getting to the basket.

If not for our 3 point shooting we probably would have lost the game. Q was 7 for 11 behind the arc and he made the Vikings pay for sitting back in a zone. He made 5 straight 3's during the first half.

The 3rd quarter Julysses took over where Q left off. He made 4 straight 3's and Deville hit 2 straight to stretch our lead and give us a little cushion going into the 4th.

We held onto to win the game and get back above .500. We saw flashes of how good Jeverick Nelson can be. He had his best rebounding game this season with 6 boards in the first half, before being sidelined with tendinitis. We're still looking for a bench!!!

District: 0-1
Record: 7-5
up next: Vicksburg

Callaway v Canton

We told the team before this game that this should be a blow out game. It was supposed to be a game where we would jump on them early and our bench would get a chance to play and work on some stuff. It didn't happen that way!

We did take a 12-0 lead out the gate. That didnt last long, before the 1st quarter was up we were holding on to a 2 or 3 point lead. We went into the half up by a couple of points and we were looking uninspired. Coach Brent was sick and the team looked as if they were sick too.

Ju and Q had 8 turnovers a piece. Not good for two of our primary ball handlers. During the last 3 minutes we had five straight possessions where we turned the ball over. We went from being up 5 to down 5. We saw our lead and our possible Top 10 ranking going down the drain.

We were bleeding and Coach Brent was not able to stop it! As a coaching staff we let our young guys down. We are definitely looking forward to playing Canton again. They were very excited about the win, and they should be. They beat a good young team that has aspirations of doing big things this year.

District: 0-1
Record: 6-5
up next: Warren Central

Vicksburg Post - Warren Central Tournament

Vicksburg High's Maurice Williams loses the ball while attempting to score in the final minutes of Friday's 46-42 loss to Callaway in the championship game of the Warren Central Classic. (Joshua Corban * Vicksburg Post)

Callaway rules Warren Central Classic


By Ernest Bowker

[12/01/07] The Vicksburg Gators have a strong team this season. They have potent scorers, capable rebounders, and good playmakers.

They also have one very bad habit.

The Gators suffered through a woeful shooting night Friday as they rushed shots and declined to pass out of double and triple teams near the basket. It was the same pattern they fell into in their only loss of the season to Forest Hill 11 days earlier, and it ended up resulting in their second defeat.

Laquinton Ross hit a pair of 3-pointers in the fourth quarter and scored 10 of his 18 points in the second half, and Callaway overcame Vicksburg with a late run to claim a 46-42 win in the boys championship game of the Warren Central Classic.

"We've got to learn to take care of the ball," said Vicksburg's Maurice Williams, who had 12 points and six rebounds. "If we can do that we should go pretty far."

Deville Smith added 20 points for Callaway (6-0), while Jonathan Phelps scored 14 for Vicksburg (8-2).


The Gators led 15-11 after one quarter, but went just 3-for-16 from the field over the next 14 minutes. For the game, VHS shot 34 percent from the field and went 9-for-19 from the foul line. The poor shooting kept them from extending the lead and set the stage for Callaway's decisive run in the final minutes.

"I thought Callaway's defense had a lot to do with that. But we didn't execute," Vicksburg coach Dellie C. Robinson said. "We settled for long jump shots when we should've been more patient with the basketball."

Vicksburg pulled its act together near the end of the third quarter and used a quick 6-2 spurt to take a 30-28 lead into the final period. Ross got hot, though, hitting two 3-pointers to help the Chargers tie the game at 36 with 3:19 to play.

Vicksburg then went cold again while Callaway got hot. Callaway finished the game with a 10-4 run. Smith scored four points, and Julysses Nobles had the go-ahead basket on a steal and layup. Vicksburg's final points came on an uncontested layup with 2 seconds to play. Callaway allowed the Gators to go the length of the floor, trading the final seconds for a meaningless basket.



"We had some opportunities with the lead to do some things and we didn't execute well," Robinson said.

While Callaway took home the tournament trophy, its coach wasn't celebrating just yet. This was merely the first of four possible meetings this season between the Division 3-4A rivals. Round two is Dec. 11 at Callaway, and they'll play again Jan. 22 at Vicksburg. They could also face each other in the division tournament in February.

"Like I told the guys, don't get fooled by that trophy because this is a game that we won that doesn't count," Callaway coach Wayne Brent said. "I think it hurts us because it doesn't do us any good. We could lose the next two and nobody remembers we won that tournament at Warren Central."

Callaway vs Vicksburg

This was a game that we needed just to see how good we had gotten. We had had a couple of big victories since our last loss and we wanted to see how we would respond to the Gators. We played poorly the first half the night before and I think they took us for granted.

Jonathan Phelps came out the box looking to do damage. He may have scored about 10 pts straight. We had our best defender on him and he had made him look really bad, the crowd was into the game and they were uuuhing and aaaahiing at his every move.

We countered with Montrell, a junior that we use for defensive purposes. He came in the game and chased and bumped Phelps until he got tired. Then we came back with Jason and he continued his pursuit of the crafty Phelps.

About midway through the 2nd quarter we saw a crack in the armour of the Gators when Phelps got tired. But when Phelps does get tired, the other players on the court start to take their games to a higher level. They ARE not a one man show. They got role players that play their roles well. And they kept the Gators in the game when Phelps was not scoring. I think the half time score was 21-21. Alot of D was being played.

We started the 3rd quarter very well, Phelps still couldn't find a rhytmn and our shots started to fall. Q got into early foul trouble and had to sit for from the half way point of the 3rd until about 5 minutes of the 4th.

Ju took two big charges and got a steal late in the game to pretty much seal the win.

"Deville did what Deville Do," and that was score and point pressure on the D. Q came down and shot a big three in transition. Then came back and hit another 3 from the top of the key. One of his biggest shots of the night came off of a curl when he stepped in the paint and knocked down a big mid range jumper.

The young Chargers are maturing! As a coaching staff we are starting to raise our expectations. We are talking NOW instead of NEXT year!

Record: 6-4
next up: @ Canton

Callaway vs Warren Central

As a coaching staff we came into this game thinking that we would win. We wanted to work on some things and give our second team guys a chance to play. We had been having second and third team guys to step up and we wanted to see how they would respond outside of practice.

The varsity came out with another plan, they wanted to see how poor they could play. They didn't pay any attention to any of the instructions that Coach Brent had given them in pre-game talks. We played a poor first half, the half-time score was 21-20 on a Deville Smith 3 pointer at the buzzer. One of the only bright spots in an otherwise poorly plyed first half.

The fans from Vicksburg stayed after their game to watch us play, all of their fans left after half time because of how bad we were playing. It was good that they left because they didn't get a chance to see how fired up we came out for the 3rd quarter.

We had our best second half of the season. We scored 48 points in the second half, and turned a sloppy 1st half into a blowout by beating the Vikings 70-39. We had a chance to play our bench and they really enjoyed themselves. It was rewarding because a couple of the seniors that would normally not play got a chance to score and have some fun.

Record: 5-4
next up: Vicksburg