EHT: Amaya fuels Bulldogs past Anna-Jonesboro

The Eldorado Holiday Tournament serves many purposes, but one thing remains true across the board. The tournament, in its 50th year, always brings out the best in teams.

There's no better example of that - in the last half century - than Harrisburg.

Saturday afternoon was no different.

The Bulldogs, who after beating Anna-Jonesboro 80-72, have now won 23 straight EHT games at Duff-Kingston Gymnasium and have won 26 out of 27 overall.

The sequal of Harrisburg and Anna-Jonesboro wasn't as good as the original, which was an overtime thriller at the Goreville Invitational this year, but there was some similarity.

The Bulldogs, who had problems stopping Zach Parr as the Anna-Jonesboro senior scored 41points, had a reversal of fortunes.

A-J had no answer for Harrisburg's Bahari Amaya as he scored a game-high 40 points and was seven points shy of the record (46) set by Ben Cartwright back in 1971 at Duff-Kingston during the Saline County Tournament.

The reigning Most Valuable Player of the EHT took another step towards the crown, which hasn't been won in succession since Reed Jackson won two in a row in 1989 and 1990. Jackson is the only player in tournament history to win three straight. Before that, Cairo's Anthony Webster won back-to-back MVP's in 1979-1980.

Amaya went 14-of-20 from the field and 5-of-7 from 3-point range. The Univeristy of Illinois-Springfield signee finished 7-of-8 from the foul line, while grabbing 13 rebounds.

Harrisburg head coach Randy Smithpeters pointed out that while it's obviously Amaya's greatest game in a Bulldog uniform, it might be one of the best games of any Bulldog considering how Amaya went about it.

"The thing about Bahari doing what he did was he did it in such a great way. He took the shots that are his kind of shots. He knew it was a hard matchup for Anna-Jonesboro, especially inside. He went inside a lot more than he has in the past. He was the leader on the floor and he made other people better, by running the offense and being a major part of the offense."

Amaya had 16 points in the first quarter and 26 in the first half as Harrisburg raced out to a 23-14 first quarter lead and led 44-36 at halftime.

Anna-Jonesboro, despite being down 16-5 midway through the first quarter, rallied to make it 37-34 in the second quarter with 2:13 to play after three straight buckets from Noah Prater.

Harrisburg responded with three straight buckets from Corbin Crim-Harbinson, Amaya and Bartok to push the lead back to 10, 44-34.

Smithpeters added that prior to coming to Saturday's game, a note was left on the whiteboard at Davenport that said: Biggest Game of the Year. The head coach said his kids took that to heart.

"The competition was there and the pressure was there," Smithpeters said. "We make conference games important, but you can make up for a stumble in the conference. You can't make up for a stumble in the EHT. Anna-Jonesboro is a team that we went nose-to-nose with at the beginning of December. We've gotten better in the three weeks since then in most phases of the game.

"We defended better, ran the offense better and made better decisions."

After Amays's 40 points, Crim-Harbinson tacked on 15 points and Anfernee Houston also finished in double figures with 11.

Harrisburg will now play Fairfield in Monday's semifinal of the EHT at noon. The winner will play in the championship game at 9 p.m.

Michael Dann covers prep and college sports for the Harrisburg Daily Register. Follow him on Twitter: @spydieshooter.

Harrisburg 80

Anna-Joesboro 72

Harrisburg (8-3)

Name FG 3-pt FT Reb PF TP

Drue 1-1 0-0 3-4 3 5 5

Houston 3-7 0-1 5-7 6 4 11

Batts 1-2 0-1 2-4 6 2 4

Crim-Harbinson 7-12 0-0 1-6 7 4 15

Amaya 14-20 5-7 7-8 13 1 40

Saulsberry 1-6 1-4 0-0 0 2 3

Bartok 1-1 0-0 0-0 3 2 2

Bittle 0-1 0-0 0-0 0 0 0

Totals 28-51 6-13 18-29 38 20 80

Anna-Jonesboro (7-6)

Name FG 3-pt FT Reb PF TP

Fuller 5-8 1-1 3-9 3 3 14

Prater 5-12 5-11 1-2 0 3 16

Parr 7-13 0-4 3-4 4 5 17

Earnhart 4-9 0-0 0-0 7 4 8

DeWitt 3-9 0-3 4-6 3 5 10

Harvell 2-7 1-5 0-0 6 1 5

Smith 1-1 0-0 0-0 1 1 2

Prather 0-0 0-0 0-0 0 0 0

Stark 0-0 0-0 0-0 0 0 0

Graver 0-0 0-0 0-0 1 0 0

Totals 27-54 7-24 11-21 23 22 72

Score By Quarters

Harrisburg 23 21 16 20 - 80

Anna-Jonesboro 14 22 15 21 - 72