By Mike Hutchens, UC Schools Communications Director
Less than Union City’s best was still good enough to propel the Tornadoes to the District 14A Tournament championship game.
UC’s boys overcame several sloppy stretches, finishing with a 13-1 run to pull away late from South Fulton in a 57-41 semifinal victory Monday night at Bethel University.
The top-seeded Golden Tornadoes (16-12), who additionally earned a home game in the first round of this weekend’s regional tourney with Monday’s win, will first face No. 2 seed Gleason in Wednesday’s 7:30 p.m. district title tilt.
Union City won both regular-season meetings with the Bulldogs by 30 and eight points, respectively.
The Twisters, who’d easily handled SF in a pair of regular season games, found themselves down by seven points early in the second period of Monday’s matchup due to erratic offensive play and a run of 13 straight points by the Red Devils (13-12).
UC survived its inconsistent shooting thanks to its trademark defense, though, holding South Fulton to just 24 points over the final 23 minutes and forcing the Redmen into 25 turnovers.
Seasoned guard Ben Kail helped the Tornadoes separate themselves from the Devils late, hitting for 10 of his game-high 24 points – including his team’s only two 3-pointers — in the final quarter.
“It was really ugly at times, and we didn’t play that well, but the name of the game in the postseason is survive and advance,” Twister head coach Shane Sisco said. “We did that, and the main reason we did was our defense. It’s what we’ve hung our hat on all season, and when you have games offensively like we did tonight, when you can’t find your rhythm on offense, your defense can and must carry you.
“I thought we played a little tight early. I told the kids that this wasn’t going to be like the first two games when we played them. South Fulton has a lot of kids back with experience and was picked to win the district by some people. I knew they’d be a different team, and they were.”
It was 44-40 with six minutes to play when Union City took over.
Kail made the second of his triples to begin a run of 11 straight Purple and Gold points, then fed Kenny Moss with a pretty assist to give the Twisters their largest lead to that point, 49-40. Hollister Johnson converted from in close and made one of two free throws to build the difference to double-digit status.
Kail, who nailed 10-of-12 free throws, bagged two charities with 1:09 to play to finish the flurry and make it 55-40.
“Ben’s one of the few on our team to have extensive postseason experience and we really leaned on him there in the fourth quarter,” Sisco said of Kail. “He’ll be the first to tell you he didn’t play well the first three quarters, but he remained calm and carried us when we needed him to.
“Again, the reason we were still in a good position late was our defense over the last three quarters. Kenny (Moss) gave us a couple of key buckets in the third quarter, and Hollister (Johnson) was active at critical times inside. Those points aren’t nearly as big if we don’t do a good job before then on the defensive end.”
Winners of 11 of their last 12 games, the Twisters answered South Fulton’s aforementioned run of 13 consecutive points with a streak of nine in a row of their own. Kail, who had nine points in the second frame, put UC briefly back ahead during a stretch when there were four ties and three lead changes.
It was 28-25 at the intermission and 37-33 after three quarters.
Johnson finished with nine points to back Kail, while Moss, Kwinton Purifoy, and Finn Frankum added six.