BAY MINETTE – Christmas came early for Baldwin County High School's Michael Stanley last Friday night when he broke the 1,000 point mark in the Tigers’ victory over Daphne Trojans during BCHS' Christmas Classic. Stanley was sitting at 987 career points going into the second game of the tournament.

Daphne came out strong in the opening quarter, outscoring the Tigers 14-11 with seven points coming from T.J. Yeldon. The Tigers made a come back in the second quarter where Stanley got the milestone. After BCHS got down 21-24, Stanley called for the ball from Taylor Culliver who was throwing the ball in after a dead ball. Stanley was standing on the baseline line towards the left of the goal when he got the ball and shot a three point shot that hit "nothing but net." BCHS took the 30-28 lead going into halftime.

The Tigers kept the momentum in the third quarter while they extended the lead to 40-35 and never lost the lead slide the remainder of the game as they took the 54-50 victory. Stanley led the game with 21 points giving him 1008 points in his career, while Mario Butler knocked in 10 points for the Tigers. Yielding and Michael Hobbs led the Trojans with 13 points each and Joe Menefee had 11 while Starling King had 10 points.

The second day of the Baldwin County High School Varsity Boys Basketball Christmas Classic was just as exciting as the fist day where less than five points separated victory from defeat.

Baldwin County High came out strong in its game against Murphy when both Michael Stanley and Charleston Gandy hit back-to-back three pointers and Taylor Culliver aided with a put back shot himself giving the Tigers an early 8-0 lead. Murphy Panthers came back with a 10-3 scoring run themselves to close the gap to within one going into the second quarter with the Tigers leading 11-10.

With 6:40 left on the clock in the second quarter the Panthers took the lead from a jump shot by Tyler Birch. Murphy kept the lead the remainder of the second quarter taking the 26-20 lead into halftime.

Towards the end of the third quarter with the score 24-27 the Tigers' Larry Rogers nailed a two point lay-up to close the gap to one 26-27. Rogers was then fouled with 2:23 left in the third quarter where he made both free throws to give Baldwin County the 28-27 lead and the Tigers never looked back. They closed the quarter with a 31-29 lead.

The Tigers kept the momentum in the fourth quarter when they outscored the Panthers 16-14 to gain their 11th win of the year by a score 47-43.

Stanley led BCHS with 20 point over the Panthers while Rodgers aided with 11. The Tigers will travel to Murphy next Thursday, Friday and Saturday where they will play in a three day tournament with all games starting at 6 p.m.

After the games Saturday the all-tournament team was announced, Daphne's TJ Yielding and Vance Jenkins were named while Davidson's Cornel Knight and Ricky Lewis took the honors. In the second game Baldwin County's Mario Butler and Michael Stanley were named to the all-tournament team along with Murphy's Tyler Birch and Antonio Jones.