MILTON, Ga. — Gainesville boys basketball coach Charlemagne Gibbons said, “Winning the championship is always hard.”
His team found that out Friday night in the Region 7-5A championship game.
The Red Elephants (19-7) held off run after run from Lanier in the second half en route to the 59-53 win and their first region championship since 2018.
“Those guys fought like all get out to be here,” Gibbons said about Lanier. “They weren’t going away without a fight. So, it’s not anything less than what we expected.”
Lanier was riding high coming into Friday night’s region title matchup, knocking off No. 1 seed Milton in the semifinals on Thursday. So, upset again was on the mind against No. 2 seed Gainesville.
But it looked as if Gainesville had erased upset from Lanier’s mind, dominating the first half, leading by double-digits most of the half, including a 37-23 advantage at halftime.
The second half was a much different story.
The Red Elephants opened the third quarter with back-to-back turnovers, and the Longhorns took advantage with an 11-2 run to cut the lead to 39-31, the closest they had been since the early first quarter.
Luke Nordholz stopped the bleeding with a massive 3-pointer with 3:48 left in the quarter, but Lanier fired right back as Justin Cunningham splashed a 3-pointer to start a 5-0 run that brought the Longhorns closer, 43-36 with 1:20.
However, Gainesville answered with back-to-back baskets from Quinton Mansfield and Charlie Gersmehl. Gersmehl, who led Gainesville with 16 points and played through foul trouble most of the game, hit a 3-pointer with 30 seconds left in the third to give Gainesville a 48-36 lead.
“Man, guys don’t know how hard that kid has worked to get to that point,” Gibbons said about Gersmehl. “Then to just stay with it, through the foul trouble. We’re just very thankful he could come in and keep his head through all the fouls.”
All seemed to be headed in the right direction after taking the 12-point lead to the final eight minutes, but once again, Lanier had different plans. The Longhorns opened the fourth on a 7-0 spurt that cut the lead to five points, 48-43.
However, Gainesville fired back with an Xavier Griffin bucket to stop the run with five minutes left. Giffin finished with 12 points.
In the final five minutes, the Longhorns kept it close and cut the lead to two points off a Reshard Slaughter 3-pointer.
Gersmehl stopped the run basket with 2:39 left, giving Gainesville a 56-52. Gersmehl scored six points in the final quarter, and KJ White was 3-for-4 from the foul line, including two late foul shots that pushed the game out of reach.
“Our guys didn’t panic tonight because we’ve been in high-level games all season,” Gibbons said. “So, our experience paid off tonight. These guys trust each other, and they trust the work they’ve done this season. We didn’t get emotional, something we’ve talked about all year with the guys, and I thought we did a pretty good of staying even-keel down the stretch, even when it got hairy at times.”
Gainesville will host Sprayberry on Wednesday at 7 p.m. in the first round of the Class 5A state tournament.
