Fatih Academy boys basketball beats San Antonio Keystone
CAPTION: San Antonio Keystone had no answer for Faith Academy senior center Judah Phillips who had his way around the paint. Photo by Stennis Shotts
The Faith Academy of Marble Falls boys basketball team crushed San Antonio Keystone 80-46 Jan. 3 in the District 4-3A opener of the Texas Association of Private and Parochial Schools.
“It’s always good to win district games,” head coach Zakk Revelle said. “We’re happy to be 1-0 in district – that was the goal today. It’s tough whenever you’re coming off a break. You would rather have maybe a game or two to get ready, but we had one game and had to turn it into a district game. And so we’re happy to come away with the win.”
The Flames raced to a 10-0 run to begin the contest that led to a 27-8 lead by the end of the opening stanza.
They leaned heavily on senior center Judah Phillips, who dropped in 10 points, and sophomore guard Hudson Tatum, who dropped in eight.
And though the Flames didn’t score for about half of the second period, once they got going, they couldn’t be stopped.
Simply, Keystone didn’t have an answer for Phillips, who stands 6 feet and 10 inches. He dominated the lane and expertly used the backboard and his body to get just enough separation from the defender to drop in shot after shot. He scored another 10 points in the second quarter for a 43-17 advantage at the half en route to finishing with 29 to lead the Flames.
“It would have been nice to score the whole quarter,” Revelle said. “We were just a little sloppy coming out of the first quarter. We want to be better than that for the next time we play them. For Judah to have 20 in the first half, we feel like he should do that all the time because he’s a really good player, and he has the advantage. We want to just continue to do that because we’re not going to see anybody like him; there’s not going to be anybody that’s going to really be able to just straight guard him.”
In all, Faith made 33 field goals with two of from the 3-point line. Tatum finished with 12 points, senior guard Jase Marshall, junior forward Seattle Hampton and sophomore guard Jadyn Jenkins each scored seven points. With Dillard and Phillips scoring on the inside, it allowed Marshall, Hampton and their teammates to score from the outside.
“Happy that we did what I asked,” the coach said. “We threw the ball inside. I look at it like football. You have to establish the run in football. And for us we have to establish an inside presence and we have a good post player with a good inside presence. We want to start there because it feeds everything else from that. We want to play inside out.”
Keystone senior guard Jack Jude, who was the league’s second leading scorer a year ago, scored 31 points with 18 points coming in the third quarter. He was the only Cobra to score a point during that eight-minute span though Faith led 64-35 headed into the fourth period.
“When you have a player like Jack Jude, you can do a lot of things,” Revelle said. “I really felt like defensively, we did a good job. They made 14 of their 46 from the free throw line, so we only gave up 32. Jack Jude scored 31 but had eight in the first half. Again, just happy with the defensive effort. I’m happy to come away with the win.”
Faith travels to play at San Marcos Academy at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, Jan. 6.
CAPTION: Faith Academy junior forward Seattle Hampton forced San Antonio Keystone to defend him. Photo by Stennis Shotts
