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Helena's Daunte Cave (0) led all scorers with 26 points to help the Huskies rout Russell County 60-42 in the sub-regional round on Tuesday, Feb. 12. (Reporter Photos/Keith McCoy)

By GRAHAM BROOKS / Staff Writer

HELENA – After advancing to its first Sweet 16 in school history last season, the Helena Huskies varsity boys basketball team punched their ticket to the regional round for the second straight year after defeating Russell County 60-42 in the sub-regional round on Tuesday, Feb. 12.

It’s quite an accomplishment for a team that lost several role players and head coach Chris Laatsch, who led them to the Sweet 16 a year ago.

The Huskies bought into first year head coach Billy Grant’s scheme and the reward is another trip to Montgomery for a regional.

“It’s definitely a big accomplishment for me just because it’s been so long between me going to a regional,” Grant said. “These guys have just gotten better and better, game by game and they just bought into how we play defensively. We still struggled to score a little bit but we took charge of the game early and they had problems scoring on us, but the guys played well.”

Led by Daunte Cave’s 26 points, Helena jumped out to an early lead and never looked back as they cruised past the Warriors on their way to a win in front of the home crowd.

Helena’s fast start was credited to solid defense and good transition offense as Caden Pierce and Cave accounted for 12 of Helena’s 17 first quarter points as the Huskies led 17-5 at the end of the opening quarter.

It was more of the same story for Helena in the second quarter.

Leading 20-10, Cave was able to get back-to-back lay ups to extend the lead to 24-10, forcing Russell County to burn a timeout with 3:37 left in the first half.

To cap off an impressive first half, Pierce received the inbounds pass with seven seconds remaining and went coast to coast to finish an acrobatic lay up at the buzzer to give the Huskies a 31-14 halftime lead. Pierce finished the game with 15 points and was awarded the Class 6A Area 8 Tournament MVP award prior to the game.

Helena’s lead was never in serious jeopardy in the second half, however, the Warriors did cut Helena’s double-digit lead to nine with under three minutes to play in large part to poor free throw shooting and substitutions by the Huskies. Helena finished the game 18-for-30 at the foul line.

Despite the tough night at the foul line, Cave responded quickly for Helena with a lay-up to put the Huskies back up by double digits as the Huskies closed out the game with an 18-point win.

In addition to Cave and Pierce, Nate Andrews was the other Husky to finish in double figures with 11 points.

“We rebounded the ball a lot better the first half than I thought them only getting 14 points and them taking a bunch of shots, but we guarded them pretty well,” Grant said. “Most of the ones they got were put backs and I think they made one three.”

With the win, Helena now advances to the Sweet 16 where they will take on Sidney Lanier on Friday, Feb. 15 at 1:30 p.m. at Garrett Coliseum in Montgomery.

Sidney Lanier, the Class 6A Area 4 champions, defeated Northview 92-54 in the sub-regional round.

See photos from the game here.

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