Faith Academy boys basketball beats Brentwood Christian

CAPTION: The Faith Academy boys basketball team, which includes junior forward Seattle Hampton (left), sophomore forward Quinton Merlick, junior forward Wade Dillard and head coach Zakk Revelle, is now ranked No. 2 in the Class 3A Texas Association of Private and Parochial Schools poll by voters of the Texas Association of Basketball Coaches. Photo by Jennifer Fierro

The Faith Academy of Marble Falls boys basketball team scorched Austin Brentwood Christian 51-19 Dec. 16.

The victory pushes the Flames’ (10-8) winning streak to five.

Faith led from start to finish beginning with a 13-2 advantage after the opening stanza and 21-8 at halftime.

“I’m not sure what it was going into the going into the fourth quarter, but we really pulled away late,” head coach Zakk Revelle said. “What we asked ourselves at the beginning of the year was can our defense travel and hold a team to 40 or less? Our goal every game is to hold people to 40 or less. And so we cut that in half and got it to 19, so that was really good.” 

The highlight though came from senior Adam Merlick, who nailed a buzzer beater from behind the arc. He recently joined the team after the football season ended Nov. 28.

“A guy who doesn’t get to play much, and it was celebrated greatly,” the coach said. “It was a lot of fun to be able to watch them celebrate together and have that happen. He’s a senior, he’s a great teammate. His goal was to play every sport that Faith Academy has to offer his senior year, and so we’re happy to have him. When we had a chance to get him in, we were happy. That was his first minutes of the year, and then he took full advantage of it. The guys ran out on the court and celebrated with him, and so it was a good time.” 

While most fans celebrate offenses, Revelle credited the Flames’ defense for the lopsided score.

“When you hold anybody to less than a point a minute, it’s a pretty good night, and almost less than half a point a minute,” he said. “They scored 19 and in a 32-minute game, that’s a pretty good indication that you were playing good defense. We’ve rebounded the ball better, we cut down on the turnovers. And this is just stuff that we’ve been trying to get better at all year.”

The Bears defeated the Flames 50-47 Nov. 24 in Faith’s Thanksgiving Classic.  

“So to be able to score basically the same amount of points against them, but then to hold them to less was a good feeling,” the coach said. “The first time we played them we were trying out some new defenses at the beginning of the year, and you’re working on stuff you haven’t really mastered yet. And I don’t think we’ve even mastered the defense we have now, but we definitely have been doing a good job of staying the course and just trying to get a little bit better each day.”

Faith Academy is hosting a triple header Friday, Dec. 19. The boys welcome Austin St. Stephens with the junior varsity playing at 5 p.m. and the varsity at 7:30 p.m. The Lady Flames and Austin Hill Country face each other between the boys contests at 6 p.m.

Revelle doesn’t take this stretch for granted.

“Seniors played really well, really all the upperclassmen played pretty well, younger guys contributed, and so we were really happy,” he said. “It’s always good to win. Winning is really hard, because it just requires you to do more than the other team consistently, and it’s hard. These kids are in high school, they have other things to think about other than being consistent with their basketball games. So for us to be consistently good defensively was a good sign. I think a lot of these really close gritty games are going to really pay off in the end.”