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MARY GARBER HOLIDAY TIP-OFF CLASSIC Reagan won its first Mary Garber Holiday Tip-Off Classic tournament championship since 2016 with a 58-47 win against Central Piedmont 4-A rival Parkland Wednesday in the Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist Bracket at Atkins. North Wilkes captured its second straight title in the Bell Davis Pitt Bracket and third since 2016 with a convincing 56-13 win against Foothills 2-A rival East Surry that resulted in a running clock for the last 5 minutes, 34 seconds of the game. Both teams were No.
1 seeds in their respective brackets in the tournament. Reagan (3-0) never trailed after opening the game on a 9-2 run and had the benefit of holding Parkland (2-1) to just three field goals in the first half. The Mustangs, the No.
2 seed, scored 10 of their 16 points in the opening half from the free throw line and trailed 25-16. People are also reading..
. The Raiders opened the third quarter with a 6-0 scoring run to extend their lead to 31-16 and led by as many as 18 before the Mustangs tried chipping away. Parkland cut the lead to seven points at 54-47 left but could get no closer.
Kayla George led three players in double figures for Reagan with 17 points. Grace Galyon, who was named the tournament's Most Valuable Player in the Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist Bracket, added 14 points for the Raiders and Avery Corbin finished with 12. Coach Keith Gunter said his team keyed on a few things they picked up from Parkland's semifinal win against Reynolds on Monday.
"Defensively, we were getting them to shoot the shots that we wanted them to shoot but we just couldn't get the rebounds," Gunter said. "We knew we needed to stay on No. 10 (Kimora Brooks, who scored 32 points in Monday's semifinal win and made 10 3-pointers).
She got a few looks in the first half but didn't make any of them and she wasn't able to get in her rhythm. I knew (Azari) Wilkins could make them too and they didn't really start making them until the third and fourth quarter. And we knew that Jordan Fisher is kind of their engine and when she got in foul trouble, I thought that hurt them too.
I thought we could put them away a little earlier once we got our lead, but I think we relaxed a little in the fourth quarter." Galyon, the team's point guard, held up against the Mustangs' pressure throughout the game. "We knew we needed to stay calm because we knew they would try to speed us up a little bit," Galyon said.
"They are a physical team. We are intense when we practice to prepare for games like this when there is that kind of pressure. When we run our plays and we execute, it can look really good for us.
I think winning this tournament can give us a lot of confidence now for the season. Winning a game like this against a good team like Parkland from our conference will certainly help us going forward." Coach Steven Phillips of North Wilkes laughed when asked if he was afraid his team might not be invited back after winning their second straight championship and coasting in all three wins to do so, two of which came against teams in the Central Piedmont 4-A.
North Wilkes beat No. 8 West Forsyth 67-45 in the opening round on Saturday and beat East Forsyth 50-31 in the semifinals on Monday. "East Surry is a much better team than what you saw tonight," Phillips said.
"We just got off to a really good start. And we're going to play them at least two more times and I guarantee they will be a lot better battles the next time we see them. The first and second games we played, they were much closer than what the final score indicated.
Our energy was really good tonight and a great team win." North Wilkes led 15-4 after the first quarter and scored the first 14 points of the second quarter and led 33-6 at halftime. The lead was never challenged in the second half.
Meredith Tomko led the Patriots with 19 points. Shalyn Bare, who was named the Most Valuable Player of the Bell Davis Pitt Bracket, added 16 points, and Ralee Bare finished with 11. Phillips said that playing East Surry, the No.
3 seed, in the championship said a lot about the strength of the Foothills 2-A Conference. "Our conference is one of the best, if not the best, 2-A conference in the state," Phillips said. "There are other teams in our league that could have been in this same situation had they been in this tournament.
Every night in our league is a dogfight. We've got great players and great coaches in our league and it's really tough. To get a win against East Surry is a great feeling.
And we got to play two really good 4-A teams this week, which is one of the reasons we love coming to play in this tournament. We don't typically get to see that doing the season. This event is always a great way to start our season.
" Making the all-tournament team in the Atrium Health Wake Forest Bracket were: Galyon and Corbin from Reagan, Brooks and Janel Carter of Parkland, and Hattie Boone of Reynolds. The all-tournament team for the Bell Davis Pitt Bracket consisted of the Bare sisters and Tomko from North Wilkes, Merry Boaz from East Surry and Lila Kelly of Forsyth Country Day. Travis Woolen is an attorney at Bell Davis Pitt and is on the Marketing Committee at the firm.
This is their third year as one of the sponsors of the event, which is run by the Winston-Salem Sportsmen Club, and Woolen said they look for things in the community that they can support. "We're doing our part to support a great event," Woolen said. "There is some great basketball and competition and it's neat to see this sort of tournament with all the area schools and the community that comes out to support it every year.
We're very proud of our involvement." Get local news delivered to your inbox!.
