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Boys’ 7th-grade title goes to Hampton

By Matt Myers

The Hampton Jr. Bulldogs and the Chuckey-Doak Lady Jr. Black Knights took home all the championship hardware and most of the individual hardware at championship Friday of the Tri-County Seventh Grade tournament.
Eight teams squared off in two championship games and two consolation bouts in the final night of bracket play between middle school junior varsity squads at Happy Valley.
For the Jr. Bulldogs, their 60-53 title game victory over Johnson County was the final step in a road toward redemption. Hampton had been bested by the National League regular-season champion Jr. Longhorns in their second meeting on the year after building an eight-point lead at the break. When Bulldog coach Dewayne Humphrey saw his squad roll to a 34-16 halftime lead on Friday, the locker-room motivation came from a look back to the aforementioned loss.