Saturday, February 18, 2006- Downtown Greenville, SC
The 2005-06 Basketball season came to an end today with the close of the First Annual Presidents’ Tournament, hosted by GCA at Second Presbyterian Church.
The Lions were 2-2 in the tournament, finishing the season with a 13-21 record. This reflects a particularly challenging season with 30 regular season games, almost unheard of with Middle School or Junior Varsity programs. GCA also faced the challenge of an “in-between” team this year, playing several Middle School teams, as well as some Junior Varsity programs.
Coach Drew Robison had these comments: “This season was, overall, a tremendous success. We started with 3 big goals in mind: (1) improve as a basketball team and as basketball players; (2) lay the foundation for aggressive growth of our athletic program for the future; and (3) promote GCA to the community and increase the knowledge of GCA among other schools.
“The large number of games helped us a little with #1, getting us lots of game experience. It was mostly helpful with #s 2 and 3, as many folks know who GCA is now… and had never heard of us before. Our players could have used more practices and fewer games this year… but under the circumstances, I am extremely proud of our team’s accomplishments this year.”
The Lions finished their regular season with strong wins over Mt. Zion at home and Shannon Forest on the road. Their last regular season game was a loss to the Trinity Christian JV team.
On Thursday, the Lions fell in a disappointing loss to Easley Home Educators. However, they bounced back on Friday evening with a huge win over Eastside Christian of Greenwood. Isaac Curto hit 5 3-point shots, (Shuler Polk added two more 3’s) and Taylor Blough was matched against the Torches’ top scorer, Matt Gleb- virtually shutting him down with a tough defensive effort. GCA lost Blough for the remainder of the tournament after he suffered an ankle sprain in the 4th quarter.
Saturday had the Lions matched up against Pleasant Grove Christian Academy. Kendrick Mims of PGCA was very effective in his earlier games this weekend. Douglas Curto and Shuler Polk led GCA in a convincing win and a roaring crowd… but the schedule had the consolation finals only 30 minutes after the Pleasant Grove win.
Despite 20 points from Douglas Curto and a 1 point lead over Anderson Christian after one half, GCA simply had no energy left in the second half. Anderson Christian won the consolation finals over GCA and took the Third Place trophy.
The Spartanburg Upstate Eagles took first place, Christ School of Arden North Carolina won second place, and Anderson Christian finished third… out of 8 participating teams.
