The Long County Blue Tide boys basketball team hosted the Islands Sharks on Friday, December 13 in their final home game of 2024. They were in charge from the opening tip and they never really looked back in an 82-29 rout.

The girls’ game was canceled after the Sharks canceled the remainder of their games due to lack of players on the team, so only the junior varsity boys and varsity boys played.

The boys went into this game with just six varsity players and three players pulled up from the junior varsity team. This stems from an incident in their game against Tattnall County last Saturday that led to seven players being suspended for two games.

Luckily, the Tide did not let this bother them as they opened the game on an 8-0 run before the Sharks called a timeout at 4:45. The Tide then got back-to-back three-point plays from Christian Presley and Jy’son Mallard as they completed a 10-0 run to go up 18-2 with 2:38 left in the quarter.

The Tide led 23-4 at the end of the first quarter and continued their dominance in the second. They kept the Sharks off the board until the 2:15 mark of the quarter while they got some big shots from 3 from Ja’Mere Martin and Zyi Holt.

One big thing the Tide benefited from in the game was staying out of foul trouble. With just six varsity players on the bench, head coach Ricky Rivera told the team that they had to stay disciplined.

“That’s kind of what we had been talking about the entire time: the discipline they had to have tonight and the adversity they were possibly going to face,” Rivera said. “Unfortunately, I hate to say it, (the players) saw the same refs (from the Tattnall County game) and it kind of turned them up a little bit extra. They were happy to see the same refs, so they could show them ‘y’all saw a different Long County Blue Tide the other night,’ even though nothing physical happened, they had their teammates’ back. We talk about what’s on the back of our shirts: brotherhood. They showed that tonight, playing together. Six guys. Nobody complaining. Nobody pouting. Energy throughout the game as if we had a whole 13 squad like we normally do.”

The Tide led 44-13 at the half and were led by Martin’s 2-of-3 shooting from 3 and 12 points. They were pumped extra by Chris Hatfield’s big dunk in the quarter as well.

All eight players who took the court scored, with five players reaching double digits.

Martin led with 24 points as he was 57% shooting from 3-point range. Holt had 16, Mallard had 11 and Kelvin Hayes and Presley each had 10 points.

The win is big because it gets the Tide to 2-1 in region play and 4-4 overall. They dropped last Tuesday’s region contest against Jenkins 41-31.

Both the boys and girls won’t suit up at home again until January 14.