After letting a late lead slip in a loss to Paducah Tilghman to start the New Year’s Bash at Graves County on Friday morning, the Christian County boys’ basketball team used a clutch steal and score by Qua Chambers to knock off Calloway County 54-52 in its second game. With the win, the Colonels move into Saturday’s 5th-place game at 2:15 PM.
Chambers and DaMikeon Mathis combined for 13 points to overcome 7 from Calloway’s Chandler Steele and give the Colonels a narrow 18-17 lead after the first quarter.
Both teams went cold in the second, with Christian County outscoring the Lakers 8-7 to take a 2-point edge into halftime.
The break didn’t do anything for either team’s scoring touch, but Stephon Bussell scored all 7 points for the Colonels and they led by 3 with a quarter to play.
Bussell scored 6 more in the fourth to go with 8 from Bubba Leavell, but Calloway got 8 from Cade Butler and 5 from Kade Mize to take a 1-point advantage with :5.9 to play. With the Lakers inbounding the ball under the Christian County basket, Chambers came up with a steal and layed it in ahead of the horn to give the Colonels a bounce-back victory.
Christian County 18 8 7 21 — 54
Calloway County 17 7 6 22 — 52
Christian County (5-8) — Bussell 18, Chambers 14, Mathis 11, Leavell 11
Calloway County (9-4) — Butler 17, Steele 14, Mize 10
