GHSA CLASS A STATE CHAMPIONSHIP PREVIEW: Marked men

DAWSON — He says he’s still got it. Says he keeps it in his office, tucked away out of sight. Says it’s there when his team needs it the most.

They need it now.

Of course, we’re talking about Terrell County’s big slingshot, the one head coach John Davis keeps locked in his office, hidden away for moments just like this one. Davis, who can quote scriptures from the Bible with the best of them, brought it out along with his Goliath metaphor a little over a year ago when his Greenwave faced top-ranked and unbeaten Wilkinson County in the Elite 8 round of the GHSA Class A state tournament.

Nobody gave Terrell County a chance, and before the game Davis simply said. “It’s David and Goliath and we’re going to need a big slingshot.”

That’s what the Dawson kids were shouting in the locker room after they shocked everyone in Georgia by knocking off Wilkinson, 51-50.

“Big slingshot! Big slingshot! Big slingshot,” cried out Markez Dotson, who was a junior then.

It’s a year later, and guess what? No one had beaten Wilkinson County before Terrell County and no one has beaten Goliath since.

The Warriors are 56-1 over the last two years and were 29-0 before and 27-0 since the Terrell County game.

This isn’t about symmetry. This is about vengeance.

“I know they want revenge. I know they want to redeem themselves,” said Davis, whose team faces a rematch against Wilkinson today at 12:45 p.m. at the Macon Centerplex, only this time it’s for the Class A state title. “They are still big, bad Wilkinson. It’s still David and Goliath, and we still need that big slingshot. I just hope Goliath doesn’t duck.”

It’s Terrell County’s first trip to the championship game since the Greenwave won it all in 1984 — the only boys basketball title in the school’s history.

“That’s a long, long time ago,” said Terel Hall, a 5-foot-10 quicksilver point guard and Super 6er who has all but thrown the Greenwave on his back and led them to the title game. Hall runs the floor, averages 17 points, seven assists and six steals a game and even grabs four or five rebounds a night.

“He does everything for us. It’s like having a coach on the floor. He’s a coach’s dream,” Davis said. “And he has stepped up as a leader (during our playoff run).”

Hall has embraced that role.

“The coaches came to me and told me I needed to be the leader,” Hall said. “And I had to step up and be that leader.”

Everyone sees it.

“He has proven he is willing to step up and be that leader,” assistant coach Louis Cobb said. “The best part is you can’t force guys to follow you. They have followed him because of the player he is. They wanted to follow him, and that’s a testament to Terel.”

Hall has had plenty of help. Dekoven Ware, who plays center at 6-feet even, has emerged as a bigger-than-life figure for this club, battling much taller players inside for points (16-point average) and rebounds (10 per game), and he runs the floor better than any big man the Greenwave have faced this season.

“We know they are going to come to play, but we’re hungrier,” Ware said. “They’re bigger and they’re undefeated. But a team like us, a team that steals the ball and runs the court and plays together might be able to pull it out. If we do, it will mean the world to us. It’s been 27 years. We can do it. We have a lot of heart, and a lot of confidence in each other.”

Charles Brown — the most quotable player in all of Southwest Georgia (and maybe the entire Peach State) — is the Terrell Torpedo.

That’s what he called the team earlier this year, but the name fits the kid they call CB. He is fast and deadly and can hit teams from beyond the arc or with slick passes inside. And like all the guards in Terrell County, Brown runs and runs and runs.

“We’re shooting for the stars,” shouted Brown as he ran off the court after practice Thursday. “That’s where we’re going, to the stars. We’ve got one more step.”

Davis rotates Elliot Harvey, his tallest player at 6-1, sophomore Tray Buchannan, who has his own brand of quickness, and Dotson, who came off the bench to take over in the 66-63 semifinal win against Whitfield Academy, hitting three 3s in a row to finish the third quarter and scoring 13 second-half points to ignite the Greenwave (27-3).

That’s another reason they’re here. They come at you at waves, and like Davis has said: “You don’t know who is going to beat you. Everybody on this team can beat you, and they’re unselfish. It’s really all about the team with them. And they have a mental toughness, a resilience.”

That resilience has become as hard as Gibraltar during this stretch run.

“Coach always tells us no matter what happens don’t let anything break up the team chemistry. Just play through it,” Hall said.

It shows. That’s one reason Terrell County never seems to get down, even when nothing goes right. The waves just keep coming at you. Davis’ kids may need that resilience more today than ever against a big Wilkinson team that wants two things: revenge against Terrell County and a state title.

The Warriors can get both.

“They want to get back at us bad,” Hall said. “We know they are going to come out and come after us. We have to be ready.”

Wilkinson felt it should have won last year’s game and Warriors coach Aaron Geter said recently to the Macon Telegraph that: “We didn’t play that bad (against Terrell County) we just didn’t make any shots.”

They did make a 3 at the buzzer to make the final look a little closer than it was. Terrell County led for most of the game and was up by four at the end.

Wilkinson has won three state titles since 1999, including 2007, and the Warriors felt they should have won it all last year. They have been ranked No. 1 in the state poll practically every week for the past two seasons.

“We play basketball at Wilkinson County to win state championships,” senior Demonzio Stubbs told The Telegraph. “That’s always the goal.”

Terrell County’s goal is to find a way again. Few teams pass the ball better then the Greenwave, and that’s why — despite being the shortest team in the entire state tournament — they have toppled one giant after another.

But now comes Wilkinson, which ripped highly-regarded Greenville, 66-48, in the semifinals and have beaten four playoff opponents by an average of 24 points a game.

“Yeah, we are going to need that big slingshot,” Davis said.