Lee Academy won its second consecutive junior high boys basketball district tournament championship.
This year’s tournament was at North Delta School.
The Colts (11-1) defeated North Delta in the tournament championship 72-66 in overtime.
Will Moser led the way with 20 points, Devonta Boyd followed with 19, William Walker finished with 16, Tanner Fava contributed seven, Montavian Artis added six, and Graham Lott scored four.
“Back-to-back district championships,” said Lee coach Michael Peckham. “We played for the district championship all four years I’ve been here in junior high. The junior high boys program has really been a feeder, which you want. You want a feeder for your varsity program, but the last two seasons, we’ve had back-to-back district championships.”
Lee came in as the top seed and defeated No. 4 Kirk Academy 37-35 to advance to the district tournament finals. Boyd led the way with 13 points.
Lee concluded the regular season with two games against Marshall Academy. The Colts won at home 59-38 behind 25 points for Boyd and 10 for Moser.
Boyd’s 26 points led the Colts to a 55-53 win at Marshall Academy.
“Just a really great core group of kids because they did the same thing in football,” said Peckham of his team winning back-to-back district championships. “They’re really great athletes. They get along. They play as well together as a unit as any team here and it shows on the court. We had a challenge because we had to play the last three games of the regular season and into the first round of the tournament without William Walker – our leading scorer and leading rebounder. For the kids to meet that challenge and get us to the championship game spoke volumes on the way they stepped up.”
Peckham said Lott and Owen Dixon stepped up when Walker was unavailable and helped get them to the championship game. He said Walker fouled out in the championship game, but Boyd, Moser and Fava also stepped up to help the Colts win in overtime.
Fillies finish runner-up
The Lee Academy girls finished the district tournament as the runner-up.
The Fillies (4-10) fell to Kirk Academy in the championship game 30-13.
Katelyn Brocato led Lee with three points, while Anderson Flowers, Tatum Young, Avery Jackson, Hallie Pitts and Bella Fava added two each.
Lee came in as the No. 4 seed and upset the No. 1 seed Marshall Academy in the semifinals 31-28.
Brocato led the way with nine points.
“The junior high girls, I could not be more proud of their efforts,” Peckham said. “Coach Charlotte (Wagner) did a nice job with them. We put in some things going into the last couple of games that we thought would allow them to possibly upset the No. 1 team, which was Marshall in the semifinals and that was a 2-1-2 half court trap. We tried to just cover up their best player and force her to make tough shots over somebody rather than getting to the rim every time. The kids played their best game of the year. It was a total team effort. They upset the No. 1 team to get to the championship game.
“Then, when they got to the championship game, Kirk presents a different type of challenge because they press. Even though we handled the press, we struggled to score.”
Lee lost at home in the regular season to Marshall Academy 34-29.
Jackson led with eight points.
The Fillies lost at Marshall Academy 63-34.
Brocato and Young finished with seven points each.
