Houston County’s Malik Gillespie erupts for 27-point first half in Day 1 nightcap of Cliff Hutto Memorial Bear Brawl

WARNER ROBINS — Houston County (5-2) ended Day 1 of the Cliff Hutto Memorial Bear Brawl with a bang as senior Malik Gillespie erupted for 30 points, 27 in the first half, in a 70-43 victory over Peach County (5-4).

“He just got in one of those zones and got hot,” Bears head coach Buddy Bivins said. “Once he gets hot, it’s hard to keep him contained.”

The biggest concern on the Trojans is Rowan Woodrich, who has a size advantage on most teams he goes up against. But he also has the skill to draw bigs to the perimeter with his outside shooting.

Against the Bears that innate advantage was null as they added Joshua Pettigrew to the mix.

Mahkel Stephens and Braylin Mills already give HoCo more length and size than most, but Pettigrew’s broad, physical frame adds another weapon that gave Peach County more trouble most teams would.

“Once we figured out Pettigrew was gonna play…we knew he was gonna fit right away,” Bivins said. “He’s massive. He kind of just clogs the paint…We got a team that can match with anybody. They go small, we go small, they go big, we got a big to match it.”

With Woodrich unable to do much heavy lifting the Trojans fell behind 13-4 early and the Bears never looked back.

Peach County went back and forth for the rest of the first but their deficit never came out of the double digits. Malik Gillespie and Karon Plummer each hit a three in the opening minutes of the second to take a 29-13 lead, and HoCo added 13 more to that for a 42-20 halftime score.

But everything goes back to the defense, which Bivins mentioned multiple times as the source of their success.

“But everything we did started on the defensive end,” Bivins said. “[We] spent the week stressing the defensive end, making some adjustments, getting some football boys acclimated. So once they locked into playing defense, the offensive end is easy.”

Josh Jackson drilled one of his two threes in the third quarter to officially make it a 30 point game, and shortly after Bivins emptied his bench.

HoCo has only had three games on the schedule in December thus far, and that time has allowed for them to heal and bring in some of the football players who joined later in the season.

“You just need those reps together,” Bivins said. “Back in November we played games back to back, [and the] football boys came in the middle of it. So it was kind of like we were making the game harder but we didn’t really have the chemistry…We had like a week off [in December] and we were able to do a lot of install. Get everybody on the same page, communicating on defense. Tonight it all came together.”

UP NEXT

Houston County will once again take up the nightcap spot on Saturday as they host Griffin in the finale of the Bear Brawl at 7 p.m.

Peach County will take a few days off before finishing their three-game road trip at Taylor County on Tuesday, Dec. 16 at 7:30 p.m.