Rebels run wild on Nation Ford in 4A playoffs

Nation Ford has made their basketball season living and dying on the perimeter.

On Saturday night, Byrnes made life tough for the Falcons.

The Rebels exploded for 35 points in the first quarter of the teams’ second round 4A playoff matchup, building a 21-point lead and cruising to an 80-50 victory over Nation Ford.

“Man, they shot crazy percentage-wise early,” Nation Ford coach Michael Tew said.

“One of my assistants told me they were close to 90 percent in the first quarter. We’re not built for that. They had some interior game, and we’ve pretty much lived and died by the perimeter. Tonight we died. We did not expect them to shoot that well from the perimeter.”

The Rebels were incredibly hot from the very beginning. Ray Miller started the contest with a 3-pointer, one of his five on the night and one of the Rebels’ four in the quarter. Nation Ford countered with some long-distance shooting of its own, and Hank Tuipulotu’s 3-ball closed the early gap to 9-6 a little less than three minutes in.

But another triple by Miller followed, then a scoop layup by Bouvier Howard, a Hayden Brown dunk that brought the crowd to its feet, and Howard’s old-fashioned three-point play in a little more than a minute that made it 19-6 and kickstarted Byrnes’ rout.

Nation Ford would make two more 3-pointers in the quarter, but Byrnes was in the middle of a 16-8 run that would largely put the game away.

The Rebels began to cool from the field and the Falcons played well the rest of the way, but the damage was done.

“We did (play better), but the trainwreck had already happened by then,” Tew said.

“But I’m proud of the kids. I don’t know if anybody expected us to be here at this time of year. These guys did a great job. I’m real happy for our seniors. They got to go out on a great year, it’s just unfortunate that we ran into a buzzsaw tonight.”

Cameron Holmes led the Falcons with 14 points. Zeb Graham added nine for Nation Ford.

Brown led all scorers with 19. Miller had 17, and Foster chipped in 17 for Byrnes.

This story was originally published February 21, 2016 at 9:08 AM with the headline "Rebels run wild on Nation Ford in 4A playoffs."