It only took till day three for HCA to get to face a team from the Volunteer state in their post Christmas Tournament.
Then it only took thirty-two minutes and some very physical and petty play for them to fall to Gordonsville from just south of Nashville.
Their is not a ton to say. The Warriors played their hearts out, and fought for much of this game, but down the stretch things got out of hand.
It was a back and forth affair in which the Tigers of Gordonsville struggled with the HCA ball pressure and guard speed at times, but the Warriors could not contain the post players and had no answer for the athleticism of Brayden Holliman.
Ultimately with around eleven seconds left in the third quarter, Carlos Robles would foul out and head coach Matt McGowan would receive a bench warning. That is when things got, well not great.
The entire four quarter was spent prolonging the game, shooting FT’s and calling timeouts, as well as seeing the Warriors and, Jason Leek specifically, leave it all out on the floor.
By the end of the game five HCA players had fouled out, coach McGowan had used all of his timeouts and the referees had all but given up on calling anything with under ten seconds to go.
It just got ugly. In truth you could probably track it all the way back to Landon Porter taking an elbow in the post and the no-call that followed.
It was just all around not a good look or game for anyone. Players, Coaches, Referees, anyone.
That being said, HCA now has to wash the slate clean and prepare for next week.
Take the weekend, because come next week it will be three hard days of practice before a game at home against Butler County on Thursday.