Local Christmas hoops tourneys feature plenty of top talent, including nation's No. 1 girls scorer

Post-holiday blues?

Not for local high school hoops fans, who can get their fill of Christmas tournament action involving Burke County teams at both Freedom and McDowell late next week.

Some extraordinarily talented teams and players will headline both the 50th annual Foothills Marine Freedom Christmas Invitational (Dec. 26-28) and the McDowell Christmas Invitational (Dec. 26-27).

Freedom boys field

At Freedom, the boys field is headlined by three teams in the top 15 of this week’s HighSchoolOT.com 828 area code rankings. They include No. 4 Asheville Christian (5-1), who opens the event on day one at 1 p.m. against Chase; No. 9 West Caldwell (5-2), who opens at 2:30 p.m. against North Buncombe; and the No. 14 host Patriots (8-1), who face a 7-2 Bessemer City team in the 8:30 p.m. nightcap.

The other first-round boys contest at Crump-Rogers Gym involves Hibriten and T.C. Roberson at 5:30 p.m., with the winner of that game facing Freedom on day two of the event.

West Caldwell beat Freedom in last season’s title game. The North Buncombe squad that the Warriors open with, though, gave the Patriots all they could handle in a 97-95 FHS road win earlier this month.

Individually, an intriguing potential rematch in the boys field pits Freedom’s Division I recruit Amore Connelly, a 6-foot-3 former county and conference player of the year who’s averaging a county-best 17.4 points per game, and his former teammate from title teams at Walter Johnson Middle School, West Caldwell senior guard Zion Thomas.

Thomas leads the Warriors at 5.6 assists and 3.1 steals per game and is one of three players averaging double-digit points (12.1), alongside Jay Maxwell (17.0) and Kaydin Dixon (12.3).

The Patriots have also gotten a major increase in production this season from sophomore guard King Johnson, the county’s fourth-leading scorer at 14.0 ppg.

Asheville Christian does not report individual stats, but its roster features five players 6-foot-4 or taller including three ranging from 6-7 to 6-9. And Trent Clark scored 34 points to lead three North Buncombe players with over 20 points each in the narrow loss at FHS.

Freedom girls field

The girls portion of the FHS Invitational also features three teams in the top 15 of this week’s HighSchoolOT.com area code rankings.

Yet that’s not the biggest story entering the tourney.

Tionna Pettus of Bessemer City (which could face Freedom in round two) is leading the nation according to statistics posted on MaxPreps.com with averages of both 48.3 points and 12.4 steals per game, adding 14.0 rebounds and 4.5 blocks on average.

The 5-foot-10 Pettus, who’s listed as a wing/power forward, broke the NCHSAA single-game girls scoring record with a 65-point performance in a 77-53 win over North Gaston on Nov. 20. She has scored at least 40 points and grabbed at least 12 rebounds in all eight contests in which stats were available, with only one game in which she didn’t record a triple-double. Her comparatively modest stat line in that contest (a four-point loss to Forestview on Dec. 3) was 49 points, 12 rebounds, eight steals, and five blocks. She has 16 steals in both of her last two games and has notched four or more blocks in all but one game.

Pettus is shooting 74% from the free-throw line and 73% from the field, including 53% from 3-point range.

Her Yellow Jackets (6-3) open against East Rutherford at 4 p.m.

As far as the top teams on hand, North Wilkes (7-1) is ranked No. 3 in the latest 704 rankings, while Hibriten (6-3) and North Buncombe (5-1) are Nos. 7 and 8, respectively, in the 828 rankings.

North Buncombe and North Wilkes face off at 11:30 a.m. on day one, after Hibriten opens the event against Asheville Christian. The defending champion Lady Patriots (5-5), who have won three of the last four event titles, face Kings Mountain at 7 p.m. on day one.

Freedom is again paced by senior guard Peyton Caldwell, the team’s leading scorer for a third consecutive season at 21.6 ppg. Sophomore Aamori Patterson (18.2 ppg) is Hibriten’s leading scorer, while individual statistics were not available for North Buncombe or North Wilkes.

Girls games take place each day at 10 and 11:30 a.m. as well as 4 and 7 p.m., with boys games tipping off at 1, 2:30, 5:30, and 8:30 p.m. daily at FHS.

McDowell tourney field

The girls side of the McDowell Christmas Invitational features the most talented set of squads overall next week, headlined by a potential title rematch between the host Lady Titans (7-0) and East Burke (9-0).

The Lady Cavaliers are No. 2 and McDowell No. 3 last week in the 828 rankings. They’re also the only teams in either field to be ranked in HighSchoolOT.com’s statewide top 25 rankings, at Nos. 9 and 16, respectively.

McDowell is led individually by the trio of Kensly Stewart, Kimora Stewart, and Khloe Joyner (individual statistics not available), while EB is again paced by senior guard Braelyn Stilwell and junior wing Kara Brinkley, a D-I recruit.

The former county, conference, and district player of the year Stilwell last week sparked a huge comeback win at Freedom as she poured in a program single-game record 42 points to also break the program’s career scoring mark. Her county-best 26.6-point average to date ranks as the county’s highest for either a boys or girls player in at least the last 18 seasons.

EB opens against Smoky Mountain at 2 p.m. before the McDowell girls at 5 p.m. tangle with Avery County (7-1), who’s ranked No. 12 in this week’s 828 rankings.

And despite having just one team in this week’s area code rankings (No. 13 McDowell, 828), the boys field in Marion next week is the only one locally in which each team enters with a winning record.

The Cavaliers (5-4) face Smoky Mountain (5-2) at 3:30 p.m. before the Titans (6-1) and Vikings (7-1) tip off in the 6:30 p.m. nightcap.

Smoky Mountain 6-foot-6 junior Custer Prenger averages 25.0 ppg entering the event, while McDowell is led by 6-7 senior Rylan Parkins’ 18.7 ppg, and Avery is led by former Table Rock Middle standout Hank Johnson’s 15.5 ppg. EB is paced by senior post Barger Shook (14.3 ppg) and junior guard Owen Hartmann (12.1 ppg.).

NOTE: See Page 2C for complete brackets for both tournaments.