SMITHS STATION — The Beulah Bobcats fell to the LaFayette Bulldogs in a physical matchup, 69-62 on Thursday afternoon during summer circuit games at Smiths Station High School.

“What I want them to do is just work hard,” Beulah boys basketball head coach Curtis Noble said. “Play hard and try to get the chemistry going amongst the team, we’ll get that kind of things going, then we’ll move forward from that.”

The game was Beulah’s last exhibition for the day after previously playing two games earlier on Thursday. The end of the matchup against LaFayette featured many foul shots and time stoppages.

“What you saw is kids grinding it out, at that point in time, and I was kind of pleased by what I saw,” Noble said. “Keeping in mind that we have played two games already. This team stayed with LaFayette, which is a dominant team so I’m very proud of my kids.”

Moving forward, Noble has two goals for the Bobcats for the remainder of this summer.

“We’ll try to work on defense and learning how to play together,” Noble said.

Beulah will continue to play a couple of exhibitions a week this summer, according to Noble.

Lanett B-Team

The Lanett B-Team steamrolled Beauregard 60-29 during Thursday’s competition. The Panthers showed no mercy as the team continued to press and score until the final buzzer went off.

“We’re going to be a lot smaller than we were last year so we don’t want to play a slow-paced game and try to get the ball in,” Lanett B-Team head coach Terrance Price said, “we want to use our quickness and try to get up-and-down the court as much as we can.”

Sophomores Caden Story and Travaunta Abner led the charge for big men during the runaway victory with their fair share of blocks and low-post scoring. Sophomore Seidrion Langston didn’t let up in the defensive effort, guarding his defender the entire way down the court.

The team can use all of the reps they can get before the season, according to Price.

“It’s very important for this team because going into next we knew that we pretty much had a good group coming back,” he said. “In the fall, we’re going to be looking to add some more kids but we definitely wanted to get a look at the kids who played last year and the kids who were already in the program from the seventh and eighth grade together to see what they looked like together.”

The Lanett B-Team has one more summer circuit to attend, which will come at the end of June in Troup County, Price said. The team is going to hold a tryout in the fall to add more players as well.