Humboldt boys pull it all together after off week to reach Region 7-A title game

Not much went the way of the Humboldt boys basketball team in the District 14-A tournament last week.

The Vikings lost twice to finish in fourth place of the district and finishing off a stretch of seven games with five losses.

But this team has seemed to turn the corner and once again be in the running for one of the eight spots in the Class A state tournament.

Humboldt avenged one of its two losses from last week with a 56-48 victory over Trenton Peabody on Tuesday at TCA in the Region 7-A semifinals.

"We just had to stick with it," Humboldt coach Ron Abernathy said. "I don't feel like we were doing anything wrong last week, just playing good opponents. We just kept working in practice every day and hoping for the best."

Humboldt (22-10) is guaranteed two more games. The Vikings play Middleton on Thursday in the region title game at 7 p.m., and they will play in a Class A sectional on Monday.

For Ron Abernathy, it goes back to the tough schedule that Humboldt played throughout the year, so his team knows how to bounce back.

"During the course of the season, we played some really tough teams and took some tough losses against much bigger schools," Ron Abernathy said. 

For junior RJ Abernathy, it was about team mentality.

"I think it was just our attitude," RJ Abernathy said. "We just had to get it corrected. We have been working since the summer, so we just had to go hard."

Humboldt reached the Class A state quarterfinals last year before taking its second loss of the season. But that team has five seniors that started most of the time.

"We went from playing five seniors a lot to playing four juniors and a senior," Ron Abernathy said. "I knew we have some rough times, but I think we have played really well this year. We played 6A and 7A teams from other states, and we played with them.

"We knew we had some good players, but we knew that we would have to work hard."

So after last week's 71-68 loss to Peabody and 62-61 loss to TCA, the Vikings needed to get back into practice and work. Nothing really needed to be changed.

Whatever the Vikings did or whatever was said in practice worked as Humboldt knocked off a 24-5 Union City team in its home gym 84-60 to open Region 7-A play.

"We went out there with the mentality that is we lost, we were done," RJ Abernathy said. "We wanted to keep going along, and we did the same against Peabody.

"We don't like the feeling of heartbreak, so we decided to get it together and get back on track to try and get to the Glass House."

Reach Michael Odom at michodom@jacksonsun.com or 731-425-9754. Follow him on Twitter @JSWriterMichael.