Hays’ Heath Agnew looks for room to score in the paint. The Rebels brought home some hardware from the Fredericksburg Tournament over the holidays, winning the Silver Bracket Championship. (Photo by Cyndy Slovak-Barton)
by JASON GORDON
The Hays High boys basketball team was looking to get back on solid ground after a few bumps in the road en route to its district opener against Lehman.
It turns out all the Rebels needed was a trip to play in the Fredericksburg Tournament December 27-29.
Hays came home as the Silver Bracket Champions.
“I really liked what I saw from our team in the Fredericksburg Tournament,” Hays head coach Dean McMullen said. “We were able to work with some different lineups and I thought we adjusted to the changes very well.”
Hays opened up the Fredericksburg Tournament with a 68-34 drubbing of Bandera behind Steven Jass’ 17 points and another 14 points from Hayden Cagle.
After losing to Liberty Hill 69-60, the Rebels rebounded and closed out the tournament in style.
First, Hays, which improved to 12-10 after starting the season 8-4, beat a solid Leander Rouse team, which came into the tournament with only three losses.
The Rebs trailed Rouse 29-27 at halftime but rallied for a 61-43 win.
A 16-6 third-quarter run turned things around for Hays, which was paced by six points from Cagle in the frame.
Cagle led Hays against Rouse with 17 points, and Travis Miller and Jacob Rodriguez chipped in with 12 points apiece.
Hays didn’t light up the scoreboard in the Silver Bracket championship game, but played solid defensively and had just enough on offense to get by host-school Fredericksburg for the title.
“We played very well defensively against Fredericksburg,” McMullen said. “We were doing some things to get ready for the Lehman game and they really worked out for us. Our goal was to extend the zone and try to make them take long shots and that’s exactly what we did.”
Trey Johnson, who hit three 3-pointers in the game, led Hays with 11 points against Fredericksburg.
Jacob Rodriguez and Cagle were named to the All-Tournament team.
“This is one of the first times all year long we’ve all been healthy and we really seemed to gel in this tournament,” Hays guard Caleb Kimbro said. “We really put some things together and I think it carried over to the Lehman game. We would have loved to have won the tournament, but it was nice coming home with a trophy as the Silver Bracket Champions.”
One lineup change was moving Jacob Rodriguez to shooting guard and letting Kimbro run the point guard position.
“Jacob is just back from an injury, and he really gives us a boost,” McMullen said. “He’s great with the ball and he’s great at getting people the ball when they are open. Running Caleb at the point basically gives us two point guards on the court.”
