On Saturday night, the Cornersville Bulldogs took home the championship trophy for the first time in the 29-year history of the Cornersville Athletic Booster Club tournament when they whipped defending CABC tourney champ Huntland 53-39 in the finals.

CMS had lost all four meetings against the Hornets over the last two seasons, but the Bulldogs turned the tables on Huntland in Saturday's contest and built a 21-10 lead in the first half before opening up a 49-25 cushion midway through the fourth quarter en route to claiming their third straight victory.

'It feels great'

"It feels great and I'm so proud of the guys," said Cornersville coach Gerard Randolph. "They played hard from the first whistle to the last whistle. Winning this tournament should boost our confidence and help us with the rest of our schedule."

Although CMS shot just 28 percent (22-of-78) from the field overall, the Bulldogs completely owned the boards and outrebounded the Hornets 52-18 overall, which included a 38-5 edge on the offensive glass.

"We rebounded really well. I wasn't happy with some of our put backs, but we rebounded the ball tremendously and had a lot of second chance opportunities," said Randolph.

Fantastic night

Forward Kolbe McMahon turned in a strong all-around performance and led Cornersville with 18 points, a career high 20 rebounds, and seven steals. Cody Umbles followed McMahon with 12 points, eight rebounds, and five steals, while Caleb Crowell added eight points and 10 rebounds. Darien Bush and Will Vanshooser also tallied five points apiece, while Trenton Warren and Alexander Stewart both chipped in two points. Eli Woodward rounded out the scoring for CMS with one point.

Huntland shot 42 percent (16-of-38) from the floor, but struggled to break the Bulldogs' full court press and committed 30 turnovers in the contest.

"I was really surprised our press affected them the way it did. We caused a lot of turnovers and got some easy baskets off of it," said Randolph.

Alex Simmons paced the Hornets with 17 points, while Blake McDonald and Bryson Foster added eight and seven points respectively Brandon Yarbrough notched five points for the Hornets as well and Chase Worthington had two points.

Setting the tone

Cornersville set the tone early and raced out to a 10-2 lead in the first quarter on the strength of five points from McMahon and an Umbles layup.

Simmons scored on a layup to trim the deficit to 10-4 early in the second period, but the Bulldogs went on an 11-4 run with the help of four points from McMahon and three points from Vanhooser to open up a 21-8 advantage late in the half.

After Simmons hit a layup in the waning moments of the first half to narrow the gap to 21-10, Huntland notched four of the first six points in the third quarter to whittle the deficit to 23-14.

The Bulldogs put down the hammer shortly after that point and outscored the Hornets 18-5 over the next five minutes behind eight points from Umbles and three points apiece from McMahon and Crowell to forge a 41-19 lead early in the fourth period.

No catching up

Huntland tallied four straight points to close the gap to 41-23, but Cornersville put together an 8-2 spurt with the aid of four points apiece from Crowell and McMahon to stretch their lead to 49-25 with 3:02 left.

The Hornets then outscored CMS' reserves 14-4 the rest of the way for the 53-39 final.