The Jayton Jaybirds basketball team has made history once more with a back-to-back ticket to the state championship tournament at the Alamodome in San Antonio. This is their second trip to the Texas UIL final four in two years.
The ’Birds (31-3) will face the Slidell Greyhounds (30-9) Thursday, March 12, 2020, at 10 a.m.
If the name Slidell sounds familiar, it may be because the Greyhounds are the defending 1A state champion.
Who they did they defeat to win the title? The Jayton Jaybirds.
Twenty-nineteen was a dream-come-true year for the Jaybirds. Time after time, they’d come up with the magic to put a W on the board, until they faced Slidell for 1A basketball’s greatest honor.
The Greyhounds snatched the ultimate victory out of the Jaybirds’ grasp, 49-36, with the entire town and Jaybird fans and alums across the state looking on.
The 2020 Jaybirds are the same players, but a different team. More seasoned and more calm. To earn this year’s final-four ticket, the Jaybirds played their district 15-1A foe, the Paducah Dragons, in the regional semifinal in Abilene Saturday.
In that game the Dragons jumped out to a lead early and went up six of seven points on the Jaybirds, but Jayton never got rattled and never veered from playing their brand of defenseoriented basketball.
After one quarter, Paducah was only up by one.
After a first half that featured six lead changes, the Jaybirds gained a permanent upper hand with a 13-3 run through the third quarter.
The usually high-scoring Dragons could get nothing going in the paint, or from midrange or beyond the arc. They managed only three points in that fateful third period. Their very physical attempts to contain the Jaybirds sent Jayton’s Tye Scogin to the free throw line time and time again. Scogin scored 21 of his 23 points for the game at the free-throw line, sinking every opportunity but one second-of-two shot.
During the Jayton-Slidell game, The Texas Spur will be posting highlights.
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