Collins leads North Augusta to tournament title and 10-1 start

Tez Collins slammed home North Augusta's championship game win Wednesday.

North Augusta scorched the nets to the tune of 11 made three pointers, scoring 60 points in the final three quarters on the way to a 73-59 win over Northwood in the championship game of the Savannah River Shootout Christmas Classic. The Yellow Jackets improved to 10-1 before breaking for Christmas behind 20 points from junior Tez Collins, who was named to the all tournament team, and 17 from senior Derius Copeland, the MVP of the eight team tournament.

Collins displayed a wide range of offensive skills by burying four first half threes, and also isolating and blowing past helpless defenders on the perimeter to score at the rim. Finally, he put an exclamation point on an emotional night fueled by a rowdy and highly supportive home crowd when he threw down a striding two handed dunk late in the fourth quarter.

Derius Copeland was named the tournament's MVP.

Coach Tony Harrell supplied me the statistics to reinforce my gut feeling that the Yellow Jackets may be the best shooting team around. Already this season North Augusta has made 16 threes pointers in a game, 13 threes in another, and 11 on two different occasions.