The Savannah Hawks Athletic Ministry Participates in Basketball Tournament

The Savannah Hawks Athletic Ministry has left the nest.

On June 5th - 7th a few of our 16U boys combined with our l5U boys traveled to Fayetteville NC to participate in their 1st United States Basketball Association tournament. Although this was new territory for the team they knew the game was still played the same. After having the pregame talk the players said to the coach "we want 1st or nothing". The coaches responded “lets go get it.”

The Hawks arrived early to size the competition and immediately they felt their was not enough competition their for them.

The first battle was against the Rising Starzs of Fayetteville NC, although they were larger than us in size their hearts and desire to win was not as great as ours and they fell victim to the Hawks.

They flew away to their first victory of the tournament with a final score of Hawks 68 Starzs 56.

The next game would be played by what we thought were tougher competitors but as the game was played the win came with ease and the Hawks defeated the Fayetteville Bullets with a final score of Hawks 58 and bullets 51.

By the time we prepared to play our 3rd game we had gained some NC fans and supporters, but we did not take that for granted, as we knew we were in Tar Heel country and we went to take care of business as we were about to face the Starz again we knew they would put up a bigger fight, no matter how hard they fought they still fell victim to swiftness of the Hawks flying over the courts and they lost with a final score Hawks 76 Starzs 67.

Surely you must know by now the Hawks ego are quite large but the tournament was not over and we still had to face the Bullets again. The Hawks jumped out leading the game the entire fIrst half and the second half lost the lead and played catch the entire second half until the final minute in a half of the fourth quarter the Hawks realized they were that close to either a victory and tournament championship or another 2nd place victory.

It didn't take long for them to remember what they went to Fayetteville for and at that moment they took the lead and kept it for the remaining of the game with a final score of Hawks 64 Bullets 60.

With this victory the Hawks won their first tournament. Oh how sweet victory is.

The team consisted of NaQuan Chisolm, Jontay Mitchell and Fred Capers of Savannah High School, Deoan Grant and JaMarey Lovett of St. Paul Academy, James Williams of Groves High School, Russell Farnble, Jvaris Delaros~ Reger Baker and Joshua Lewis of Jenkins High School, Simon Heyward of Beach High School, Carlos Richardson of Scott Alternative School, and Tyrone Lovett of Johnson High School.

Leading scorers for the 4 game series were as follows: Jontay Mitchell average 16 James Williams 14, Reger Baker, Simon Heyward 10, Fred Capers 5, Naquan Chisolm and Deoan Grant 4 point per game.

The team was coached by Benjamin Mitchell and Marquita Chambers.

Special thanks to Dr. Phillip Cooper, Evangelist Maggie Mitchell and Mrs. Inez Steel and our parents for their continued support.