Holliday boys basketball pulls away from Childress to advance to region final

WOLFFORTH — The Holliday boys basketball team quickly bounced back from a small halftime deficit to reclaim the lead early in the third quarter and pulled away late to knock off reigning state runner-up Childress 52-41 in the Region I-3A semifinals on Friday in the Tiger Pit at Frenship High School.

Holliday (33-2) trailed 21-19 at the half but went on a 7-0 run that pulled the Eagles back in front midway through the third. Childress made several pushes to get back into it, cutting the deficit to one later in the third before Holliday took control for good.

Plenty of attention was paid to Holliday's Keitenn Bristow. The 6-foot-9 senior drew many Bobcat eyeballs on defense. It took a bit for the other Eagles to help take some of that attention away.

Bristow had 14 points and three rebounds at the half, doing most of Holliday's scoring. While he finished with a game-high 29 points and 10 rebounds, he got contributions from the likes of Josh Burggeman and Grant Cox, who spread the Childress defense out in the second half.

Bruggeman hit a couple key 3s in final two quarters and opened things up for Bristow to find driving lanes.

"It was big enough to get a little extended lead right there," Holliday coach Kyle Tucker said, "and to kind of put pressure on them, and once we get five-, seven-point lead we don't have to come out and guard them as much. We can kind of sit inside and defense better that way because they're so quick and shoot the ball so well, so we have to overextend and they get get opens, which is what happened in the second quarter."

Isaiah Jolomo and Billy Moore each had 12 points to lead Childress. Jesus Jalomo hit two of Childress' seven 3s in the game, which came a round after the Bobcats hits 11 triples in the quarterfinal win over Idalou.

Cox had 11 points and four boards while Ashtyn Berry contributed five points, five rebounds and three assists.

This article originally appeared on Lubbock Avalanche-Journal: Holliday boys basketball pulls away from Childress to advance to region final