The Cleburne Yellow Jackets achieved a first on Saturday in the seventh place game of the Joshua basketball tournament at Joshua High School.
They became the first victim for previously winless Joshua (1-7) as the Owls knocked off the Jackets, 70-62.
The loss left Cleburne without a win in the tournament while Joshua avoided finishing in last place in their host tourney.
The two squads battled to a 19-19 tie after the first quarter, and the Jackets took a 20-19 lead in the opening minutes of the second period off a free throw by Michael Whitehead.
Joshua went on an 11-0 run to take a 30-20 lead, and withstood a 7-0 run by Cleburne to take a 38-35 advantage into halftime.
Things began to unravel for the Jackets in the third period as Cleburne was outscored 16-9 in the period as the Owls led, 54-44, going into the fourth quarter.
It only got worse from that point for the Jackets as Joshua stretched its advantage to as many as 18 points at 64-46 as the Owls feasted on a plethora of Cleburne turnovers and missed shots.
The Jackets rallied to trim the final deficit to eight in the waning minutes, but it was too little, too late for Cleburne which fell to 1-5 on the year heading into Tuesday’s 8 p.m. road matchup with Mineral Wells.
Jackets’ head coach Greg Kudrna was frank in his analysis of the loss.
“I just told them that we didn’t get better today,” Kudrna said. “That was the most disappointing game that we’ve played. There were lots of turnovers and I don’t think we were mentally focused.
“It was just an awful game.”
Kudrna said the theme of today’s practices will focus on one thing; defense.
That’s something he said Cleburne hasn’t played much of in the last few games.
“We scored 62 points and we can’t even come close to winning?” Kudrna said. “We’re only going to work on defense in practice [on Monday]. We score every game, but we just can’t stop anybody.”
Joshua head coach Johnny White was considerably more upbeat after his team’s first victory of the season.
He said the win was an embodiment of several critical factors coming together at the right time.
“I’m feeling really good because the kids did it the right way,” White said. “I thought we forced the issue and made some things happen. We helped create a win.”
White said four complete quarters of effort was essentially to picking up the “W”.
“I think we had four quarters minus a 28-second lapse late in the fourth quarter when we had to protect a lead,” White said. “We hadn’t been in that position, but we learned that today and I think we’ll be better for it on Tuesday.
“We had all the pieces in place today and we showed what we can be.”
Joshua’s Jesse Williamson led the Owls in scoring with 16, while Cleburne’s Cody Murphy topped all scorers with 20 points.
The Jackets’ Brodrick Martin, Tyler Chappell and Chaston Cuffee all finished with 10 points, and the Owls’ David Bryan and Tanner Sigler each finished with 10.
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Joshua downs Cleburne, 70-62
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