In their final games of the Demarquis Besteda Holiday Classic in Grove Hill in Clarke County Thursday and final games of the 2010 part of their schedule, both T.R. Miller girls and boys basketball teams came away with wins.
The Tigers took on the Coffeeville Panthers in the first game of the tournament and came away with a 44-37 win while the Lady Tigers downed the Linden Lady Patriots 48-23.
With the wins, the Tigers improved to 4-5 overall and the Lady Tigers to 8-4.
The win for the Tigers puts them one win shy of their total wins of five from the past two seasons combined and already four ahead of going winless last season.
“Well I think the guys are making some progress and getting better,” T.R. Miller Tiger head coach Ron Jackson said. “We played a good game today. I was really impressed with the way Antonio Payne played. He went to the boards and got the ball and got some rebounds and played like he was capable of playing. We have got to get more of that out of him. We did a great job on defense. Defense, the few wins we have got, defense has been what carried us to them. We just need to keep getting better.”
Jackson said the girls game was the same way as the boys.
“Conditioning and defense won the game for us,” Jackson said. “We just kept the press on them and we were able to get some easy baskets from it. We just have to keep playing hard defense and the rest of it will come. These were good wins for us (going into the 2011 part of the schedule and area play). It is always good to win. The girls have had a bumpy road here and there, but I think they are starting to get back on track.”
T.R. Miller will resume play Tuesday at home against Flomaton at 4:30 p.m.

TRM boys 44, Coffeeville 37
After building a 12-point lead heading into the fourth quarter, the T.R. Miller Tiger boy’s basketball team held on for a seven-point, 44-37, win over Coffeeville Thursday in Grove Hill.
The Tigers lead 35-23 after three quarters of play, but saw the Panthers cut the lead to 35-30 with 6:08 left in the game as Coffeeville went on a 7-0 run.
T.R. Miller would respond with a 6-0 run to take a 43-32 lead with 4:20 left to help aid in the win.
The Tigers led 8-4 after the first quarter after the Panthers led 4-1 with 3:12 to go in the quarter, T.R. Miller ended the quarter on a 7-0 run.
T.R. Miller would use an 8-0 run in the second quarter to outscore Coffeeville 15-9 and hold a 23-13 lead at the half.
In the third, T.R. Miller edged out the Panthers 12-10 to take the 35-23 lead into the fourth. Coffeeville outscored the Tigers 14-9 in the fourth, but T.R. Miller hung on for the win.
T.R. Miller was 5-for-19 from the free throw line in the win while Coffeeville was 10-for-25.
Mark Bryant led T.R. Miller with 15 points and Payne added 10. Caleb Hubbard had six points and Darrion Salter had five. Jaquan Dewberry added three points along with Kameron Winn and Caleb Dickey chipped in two points for T.R. Miller.

TRM Lady Tigers 48, Linden 23
After a close first quarter that saw the Lady Tigers of Brewton only lead by four at 9-5, T.R. Miller would outscore Linden 39-18 the remainder of the game to win by 25 points.
With the game tied 5-5 with 1:41 left in the first quarter, T.R. Miller ended the quarter on a 4-0 run to hold a four-point lead after the first quarter of play.
The Lady Tigers would then outscore the Lady Patriots 14-6 in the second quarter to lead 23-11 at the half.
In the third quarter, T.R. Miller held a 15-5 advantage to increase their lead by 10 points, 38-16, heading into the fourth.
In the fourth, the Lady Tigers edged out Linden 10-7 to get the win.
The Lady Tigers attempted 17 free throws in the game and made six while Linden was 0-for-1.
Despite winning by 25 points, the Lady Tigers had only three scorers in the game with Leah Brundidge leading the way with 17 points followed by Adrian Gibbs with 16 and Sha Kiser with 15.