East Limestone players remembered the final of the 2019 Limestone County Tournament, when the Indians lost a close game to Tanner which denied them a championship for the first time since 2016.

They were determined not to let it happen again, and they didn’t.

The Indians led from start to finish in a 53-31 victory over the Rattlers to bring the trophy back to East during Saturday night’s boys tournament championship game.

“We’re getting back to how things are supposed to be, East Limestone winning it,” senior Xavier Griffith said after scoring 19 points to lead all scorers. “Last year hurt us a lot. We wanted to win the county championship really bad (last year), but this year we got revenge.”

The varsity boys final was the conclusion to a basketball tournament that was dominated by East Limestone. The Indians won in every division — middle school boys, junior varsity boys and girls, and varsity boys and girls — except for one.

Ardmore was the only school to prevent a clean sweep, as the Tigers defeated the Indians in the middle school girls championship game.

“It’s great to see all the East Limestone teams win,” East varsity boys coach Fred Steger said. “Our administrators have done a great job supporting us, and then the coaches all work together making sure we have quality time to work our kids out in the program, boys and girls. I can’t say enough about how good it is to see all the teams finish off with a win tonight.”

The boys championship game was never in doubt. East raced to an 11-0 lead in the first five minutes of the game and continued to lead by double digits the entire first half, despite senior standout Austin Harvell getting into foul trouble. Harvell had three fouls in the first half and had to sit for much of the second and third quarters.

But Griffith stepped up in his place, just as he did in Thursday’s semifinal win over West Limestone. Griffith hit four 3-pointers and was a key player defensively as the Indians held Tanner to its season low in points.

“Tanner is a great, athletic team that’s quick and can cause you a lot of problems getting up and guarding them,” Steger said. “We tried to make sure we stayed in front of them and made them shoot over the top of us.”

Steger had nothing but praise for Griffith after watching his senior’s performance in the final.

“He’s very versatile,” Steger said. “He can be out on the perimeter handling the ball and hit those deep shots, and we can post him up as well. That makes it very difficult for a lot of teams to match up with him.”

Harvell added 15 points for the Indians, while R.J. Duncan chipped in with 11.

Tanner was led by J.J. Jones with 17 points and Malik Atkins with eight.

It was Griffith’s first county championship. He was in eighth grade the last time the Indians were able to take home the trophy.

“Coming back from my ninth-grade year not winning it to now with it being my senior year and being able to bring one back to East Limestone, it feels great,” Griffith said. “The trophy is back where it belongs.”