By Gaylen Duskey
realfang@citlink.net
It took a while -- 10 games to be exact -- but the highly-regarded Calhoun Middle School basketball team has finally reached .500 on the season.
The Red Devils reached that level Tuesday night with a 27-21 victory over Gilmer County.
Tyler Gerwig led the way with a double-double that included a team high 10 points and 10 rebounds. He was backed in the scoring column by Tyler Sims with seven, Lucas Wilson with six and Tyler Tanner with four. Sam Brady and Kirkland Allen both played but did not score.
Gerwig had a lot of help on the boards as Brady added eight and Tanner seven as the Red Devils held a 2-1 edge (32-16).
The Red Devils showed the effects of the weather-induced 19-day layoff, especially early in the game and especially on offense where they managed to hit on just eight of 25 shot attempts.
Gilmer took a 4-3 first quarter lead as the Red Devils missed all six of their shot attempts and hit on half of their six free throws.
Calhoun took the lead for good early in the second period when Gerwig scored the team's first basket of the game. After that a field goal by Sims stretched the lead and Gilmer was never able to get even after that.
But the Titans stayed close the rest of the way allowing Calhoun to only stretch its lead to 10 on one occasion -- 27-17 -- before four Gilmer points in the last few seconds set the final margin.
Gilmer was led by Austin Ratliff with seven points.
The B game was another story.
Calhoun took a 3-0 lead on a Nick Watkins' basket only to have Gilmer run off 13 straight and take a 19-6 halftime lead en route to a 44-13 victory.
Watkins, Ethyn Miller and Dustin Turner led 0-10 Calhoun with three each while Jerry Jones and Austin Gribble added two each. Christopher Kirkland, Chris Thornton, Riley Cain, Justyn Starcher, Robby Lamp, Austin Bailey and Nick Murphy all played but did not score.
Lamp and Gribble led with way with eight rebounds each despite the much taller Titans sizable rebounding (40-24) edge. Lamp also had four steals for the Red Devils.
Ty Harkelroad led Gilmer with 18 points while Wyatt Helmick added 10. Helmick also had a game high 15 abounds while Harkelroad had six steals and four assists.
Calhoun will return to action Monday night when it plays host to Clay County in a makeup game.
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