BACK TO BACK: Montgomery Academy storms out to big lead to earn second-straight title
Montgomery Academy won its second-straight state championship on Friday, defeating Southside-Selma for the 3A title at Birmingham’s BJCC Legacy Arena. (Tim Gayle)
By TIM GAYLE
BIRMINGHAM -- Montgomery Academy held Southside-Selma to six points in the first quarter and eight in the second as the Eagles rolled out to a 20-point lead in the first half of Friday’s Class 3A championship game at Legacy Arena.
“Something in our team kind of clicked a month ago,” Montgomery Academy coach Jeremy Arant said, “where we decided what kind of team we were going to be -- a defensive, physical, tough-oriented team -- and I think you could see that tonight. They’ve really bought into trying to make it really difficult for the other team on the offensive end.”
But the players didn’t celebrate their good fortune in the locker room at the half. Southside (22-7) had reached the finals after hitting a 3-pointer at the buzzer to beat Houston Academy in the South Regional finals, then scored six of the game’s final seven points to beat Whitesburg Christian in the semifinals on Tuesday.
“Every game in the playoffs, they came back from being down at halftime,” said tournament most valuable player Braden Gordon. “We’re not those teams. We’re different. We don’t give up second-half leads. Y’all are not going to come back and beat us. Especially not in a state championship game. That will not happen.”
It didn’t. The Eagles (28-7) put together an impressive performance from start to finish, dominating the Panthers on the way to a 66-39 victory to claim their second consecutive 3A state championship.
“It feels great,” Montgomery Academy point guard Mason Ellis said. “Coming into it, we had a lot of doubters, people who didn’t think we were going to be here, so getting back to this moment, it means the world.”
Gordon had 16 points and 11 rebounds and Jarrett Friendly had 14 points, 15 rebounds and three assists to keep the Panthers from ever mounting a serious threat to the Eagles’ title hopes.
“You go into a game thinking it’s for a championship, it’s going to be tough,” Gordon said. “We knew they were a good team but we knew we could win like this if we just played our game and took them out of their game with our defense. And that’s what we did.”
That defense carried over to the second half as well. Southside fans, accustomed to seeing their team come alive in the final 16 minutes, had little to cheer about as the Eagles tightened their grip through an aggressive, relentless defense.
“I think what other teams missed is they didn’t play them straight up,” Friendly said. “They played off of them, which allowed them to get into their game late in the game. They’re a very good second half team so stopping them from getting in transition, getting rebounds and scoring, that’s a good part of our game.
“We knew if we came out there in the first three minutes (of the second half) and played as hard as we could, we knew the game was ours.”
The Eagles were dominant in every category, including an incredible 46-26 advantage in rebounding and 12-3 in assists, while holding the Panthers to just 27.1 percent (13 of 48) from the floor and 20 percent (3 of 15) from beyond the arc.
“We knew who their two biggest rebounders were,” Friendly said. “We knew that No. 2 (Armari Towns) and No. 23 (Michael Hosea), those two were going to get to the boards and the other guys would stay out and shoot and jog back on defense. We knew if we got the majority of the boards -- hold them to maybe 25 percent of their offensive and defensive rebounds -- we would win the game.”
Ellis added 14 points and four rebounds for the Eagles. Derrick Surles led the Panthers with 11 points and three rebounds.
And a Montgomery Academy team with unproven depth after losing eight seniors a year ago proved to be just as dominant in 2026 while playing the toughest schedule in program history. The Eagles closed out the schedule with 20 wins in its last 22 games, losing to Class 7A G.W. Carver and Enterprise.
“The feeling was like this is my team, me and my guys’ team, because these were the guys I came in with,” Gordon said. “It was a little different. Last year was great but this year felt a little different because it was my team. We came in together and accomplished that goal.”
Arant refused to compare the 2026 champions with the 2025 version, but pointed out the difficulty facing this year’s team in its bid to repeat.
“Last year’s team, I would have told you coming into the season, everybody thought we were the best team,” Arant said. “We had eight seniors on this team. This year’s group, we’ve got two seniors. Will (Renfroe) plays a lot of minutes. Rob (Ashworth), our other senior, doesn’t play a lot of minutes. So we were young. How were people going to respond throughout the season?
“It’s a long season and we’ve had a lot of injuries. Robert (McGaughey) had a 25-point game our fourth game of the season and tore his ACL the next day in practice. ‘Bray’ (Gordon) starts the season with turf toe (from football) and plays through it. ‘Mace’ (Ellis) is having surgery on Tuesday for a torn labrum in his shoulder. He’s been playing like that since Dec. 26 and he didn’t do it for himself, he did it for everybody. JayJay (Jackson) played for a month with a broken toe. Jarrett (Friendly’s) on the court three days after playing Bayside in football. This team has grinded through a lot of stuff people don’t know about.
“They’re sacrificing for their teammates. To me, that’s what this one was all about -- perseverance and sacrifice.”
Joining Gordon on the all-tournament team were Ellis, Friendly, Southside’s Derrick Surles and Amari Towns and Whitesburg Christian’s Tripp Mason.