Tigers close out season

The Rockdale Tigers split their final two games in district play, but it wasn’t enough to get them in the playoffs.

Coming off a victory over Rogers, the Tigers fell to Academy Tuesday night on the road 53-44.

The Tigers end the season at 11-19 overall and 5-9 in District 10-3A and in sixth place.

Jarrell—the no. 1 Class 3A team in the state—ran away with the league title with a sparkling 14-0 record and were 27-4 overall.

Tuesday night against Academy, Kelan Evans canned 12 points on the strenth of four three-pointers to lead Rockdale, followed by Chris Johnson’s 11 and Torry Locklin’s 10.

Locklin also collected a team-high six rebounds and three assists.

The Tigers fell behind early and never recovered and even a furious 20-point fourth quarter could not make a dent in the double-digit deficit.

Against Rogers, Rockdale sprinted out to an early lead and staved off a couple of late runs by the Eagles (6-20, 3-11) to win 57-46.

Evans heated up again and pumped in five three pointers to pace the Tigers with a career-high 17 points. Three of the treys came in the second half.

Locklin complemented Evans with 14 points, including eight in the first half. The senior point guard also produced a team-high five rebounds and two assists.

The Tigers were coming off a loss to Cameron in which they missed 21-of-24 three pointers, but were much more accurate Friday against Rogers nailing six-of-20, thanks mainly to Evans’ accuracy. “It’s amazing what can happen when you hit some threes,” said Rockdale Coach Mark Nickols, who completed his second year. “We thought we did a really good job on defense. We wanted to get them to play 94 feet and I thought we did a good job of speeding them up and making them play at a pace faster than they wanted.”

A pair of long distance bombs from Evans to close out the first quarter provided Rockdale with an 17-8 lead.

Rogers began to chip away at that lead in the second quarter and pulled to within 21-20 midway through the period, but six with 408. David was a third-team pick in 2016 and is the fourth member of the David family to be named to an All-State team. Miller guided the Tigers to the state championship in his 12th season at Rockdale. straight points from Locklin handed the Tigers a 31-26 halftime edge.

Despite missing 13-of-17 shots in the third quarter, the Rockdale full court pressure harassed Rogers into eight turnovers and held them without a field goal for over six minutes and the Tigers produced their first double-digit lead, 42-31, by the end of the quarter.

Rockdale continued the pressure and opened the final period with a 12-4 run to build a 54-35 lead on Evans’ fourth trey and Chris Johnson’s drive to the basket.

But Rogers threw one final scare into the Tigers and outscored the them 11-3 over the final 4:15 to pull within eight.

Rockdale lost to Rogers in the first round 47-45.

The Tigers lose eight seniors: Locklin, Johnson, Mekhi Evans, Tyler Lehmkuhl, Hunter Lehmann, Dylan David and Marvin Wyatt.