Velma Jackson advances in postseason
Velma Jackson advanced to the Region 6-1A title game with a 59-49 win over McAdams on Tuesday night, securing at least the two seed in the region going into the state playoffs.
It was a back and forth matchup throughout the game and while Velma Jackson was able to build up a double-digit lead at times, McAdams just kept hanging around and kept it close until the end. One reason for that is familiarity, with this being the third time that these two teams have played and Velma Jackson taking both of the regular season matchups.
“These two teams are so used to each other and I think with us winning the first two times, it made us relax a little bit, which can’t happen in postseason matchups,” Velma Jackson Head Coach Jeremy Jackson said. “We thought we had the game in the bag, but our guys have to realize that a game can be turned around at any given moment, so we have to make sure going forward that we put them away early and keep our foot on the gas.”
A main reason that Velma Jackson was able to stave off the efforts of McAdams was the scoring effort of Trevon Willis, who scored 23 points on the night and did it in a variety of different ways.
Willis, who is also the starting quarterback of the Velma Jackson football team and is the brother of Mississippi State football signee Tyshun Willis, is one of the best athletes in the area and has developed into one of the leaders on the basketball court for the Falcons in just his sophomore season.
“He is such a true athlete and he offers us so much both defensively and offensively,” Jackson said. “He shows great leadership for our team and has extreme toughness and we rely heavily on him every game.”
This Velma Jackson team has plenty of potential for an even deeper postseason run and showed flashes of that in the win on Tuesday night. If the Falcons can clean some things up going forward, then the sky is the limit for the program going forward into the rest of the postseason.
“We really need to execute our offensive sets at a higher level and stick to our assignments defensively,” Jackson said. “We got caught up going up-and-down with them a lot tonight and lost our man on defense, so we need to clean that up going forward.”
Velma Jackson is hosting the Region 6-1A tournament and will play host to the region championship game against Nanih Waiya on Friday night at 8:30 PM. The Falcons split the season series with Nanih Waiya, falling 58-46 in the home matchup on January 3rd and winning the road matchup 43-38 on January 23rd.