The Baldwin boys’ basketball team has had some unfortunate results recently, but that hasn’t stopped them from competing for a region championship.
The Braves are 12-9 on the season and 7-3 in region play but have dropped three of their last four.
After losing to Washington County by a point a few weekends ago, Baldwin dropped another one-point game to Spaulding the following Tuesday.
Head coach Anthony Webb acknowledged that it was well within his team’s grasp, they just missed some opportunities down the stretch.
“We played well, but there were a couple plays here and there. We had a chance to win it at the end, but missed a shot,” Webb said. “I tell our guys, ‘you learn from the losses more than you learn from the wins,’ so we need to take advantage of that when we are in these situations.”
Baldwin learned from its mistakes quickly, and by the Braves' third region game in a row, they were ready to put it together for four quarters.
Webb’s team hosted the Griffin Bears last Friday and got the 52-41 win. He believes that his guys were able to learn from their mistakes in the first matchup against the Bears to get the upper-hand in the second.
“I told our guys that we should be able to take any of our losses and use it as a learning experience for future games, and that’s what we did,” Webb said. “We just didn’t close them out the first time and let them get back into it, but we played aggressively the entire time and didn’t let that happen the next time we played them.”
All in all, Baldwin’s last two regular season contests coming up will be its most important.
The Braves are currently ranked third in Class 4A Region 2 and will need to beat Perry and West Laurens the last two games of the year to finish with a favorable position heading into the region tournament.
Webb has noticed his guys have started to move the ball around much more than they did at the beginning of the season.
If the Braves want to make a deep run in the postseason, Webb believes they must continue to share the ball like they have been.
“They’ve gotten really unselfish, and that makes it hard for teams to focus on one player when they scout us,” Webb said. “In terms of the leaders, it’s been our veteran guys that have stepped up. We’ll need them down the stretch.”