GOUDARZI & YOUNG / ETBLITZ TEAM OF THE YEAR | Tatum High School boys basketball!
The Goudarzi & Young, LLP / ETBlitz.com Team of the Year is the Tatum High School Eagles boys basketball team.
There’s no point in beating around the bush. The Eagles did what you were supposed to do: they had a goal on the very first day of practice of winning the University Interscholastic League’s Class 3A, Division I State Basketball Championship. There were other goals along the way, and those were accomplished, as well, but they never took their eyes off of that one goal.
Coach Brett Carr pulled a Michael Jordan: he set out to pull off Tatum’s version of “The Last Dance,” so to speak, a walk-off win, a one-and-done, a last call before his retirement. He had a special group, and he knew it. And while some of that group will come back for new head coach Jayme Bradley, for yet another run, the time for the Eagles was now.
And they made the most of it.
So, for winning the UIL Class 3A-DI boys state basketball title, it gives us great pleasure here at ETB to name coach Carr’s Eagles the first-ever Goudarzi & Young / ETBlitz.com Team of the Year for the 2024-25 school year. Congratulations, guys – you deserve it, and then some.
This was chosen not by one person, but by a panel of seven, based on ultimate accomplishment / achievement in their team’s sport, with the nominees coming not from coaches, but in-house within ETBlitz.com. We thank Goudarzi & Young, LLP for sponsoring the team of the week award since its inception, and continuing to do so through the incoming school year of 2025-26.
Before we talk more about the Eagles’ accomplishments, we’re going to name the other nominees, and the order of finish among our seven-person panel, and their accomplishments will also be noted.
In order of finish following Tatum boys basketball:
2.) Kilgore High School Bulldogs football.
3.) Overton High School Mustangs baseball.
4.) Kilgore College Lady Rangers basketball.
5.) Tatum High School Lady Eagles volleyball.
The best of the rest: we’ll have that at the end of the story.
Here’s a video by our fantastic associate, the great Box.County, from a Jan. 21 2025 regular season game between Tatum and Sabine, from YouTube.com…
No. 1: Tatum Eagles boys basketball
Here’s the ultimate spoiler: Coach Carr retired after guiding his Eagles to a 32-2 overall record and the UIL Class 3A, Division I state championship in the 2024-25 season, not a bad way to end your career – a career that included five (!) trips to the University Interscholastic League’s State Basketball Tournament, all at Tatum.
He left the school briefly for another stop, but returned a few years ago, and the people at Tatum are so glad he did.
The Eagles scored, on average, 81 points a game this year, and allowed just 50. In short, they whipped folks.
They went 12-0 in district play, winning a district championship, of course. They went 13-0 at home, 10-1 on the road, and 9-1 in neutral-site games.
Their longest winning streak was 18 straight. Now, who beat them: Well, Jefferson beat them on Dec. 10, at Jefferson, 85-73 in double overtime. They would avenge that loss in the playoffs at UT-Tyler. And Kountze would beat them in tournament play by one point, 69-68, on Dec. 28.
After that loss to Kountze, as it turned out, the Eagles would not lose another game.
They routed Mineola, 77-48, in Longview to open the playoffs, and then beat Liberty-Eylau, 69-53, in Pittsburg. L-E was undefeated on the season before losing to Tatum.
The Eagles routed Ponder, 73-53, and then got revenge all OVER Jefferson, 70-42, in Tyler on Feb. 28. Iowa Park stood no chance in the state semifinals, 77-38. And in the state championship, JaCorie Bradley and Luke Sigler went wild, turning what many thought would be a close game into a laugher, 84-49.
Bradley’s dad, Jayme Bradley, has been Carr’s assistant three years running, and now he’ll take over the head coaching whistle, so the folks in Eagle Country feel pretty good about the success keeping on rolling.
Other assistant coaches for the Eagles were Clancy Brown, Daniel Carr, and Henry Parker.
As mentioned, it was Tatum’s fifth time to compete at the state tournament: 2003, 2011, 2014, and 2021 were the others, but this was their first win, and a sweet one it was.
Bradley and Sigler, Cayden Tatum, Kenneton Harrison, Nalayus Boyd, Namhun Kim, Jordan Chambers and Nick D’Souza were the senior class of 2025, a huge role in that state title. Juniors on the roster were Cooper Whiteus and Carlos Hernandez; sophomores were Quincy Davis, Grayson Lee and Brandon Howard; Koby Bridges and DaMarion Tolbert were the only two freshmen.
Student trainers and managers, in alphabetical order: Deadrian Bradley, Braelon Cochran, Xavior Moore, Gage Sparks, and Jennie Spearman, and team statistician, Robert Galloway.
In the final game, in the title game win over Columbus, Bradley and Sigler each had 26 points; Chambers had 13; Whiteus finished with 11; Boyd had six; and Tatum had two. Chambers had 13 rebounds; Sigler and Bradley each had seven; Tatum had five; Whiteus had four; Boyd, Davis and D’Souza each had two; Harrison and Hernandez each had one; Chambers had five assists; Whiteus had four; Boyd had three; Tatum, Bradley and Sigler each had two; and Chambers and Whiteus each had a blocked shot.
It was a dominant win in a season of dominance: it was a fitting way to wrap it up.
“Oh, yeah,” Carr said, with a laugh, right after the game. “We were just waiting on it. It’ll probably sink in later tonight. I’m so proud of those guys. I mean, three years – they go back further than that, because they traveled with my other team that came down here, and they were the ball-boys and the water-carriers. And they were on a mission. You know, this is a hard thing to do. It’s hard to get here, and it’s hard to win it. I proved it’s hard to win it.”
Congratulations again to the Eagles for the Goudarzi & Young / ETB Team of the Year Award!
No. 2: Kilgore Bulldogs football.
Coach Clint Fuller’s Ragin’ Red went 13-3, and reached the UIL Class 4A, Division I state championship game at AT&T Stadium on Dec. 20.
Other than just a couple of missteps, the Bulldogs did just about everything right all season, but they did lose that game, 55-21, to Celina.
At one point, Kilgore had a nine-game winning streak. Along the way, they celebrated the 20th anniversary of the 2004 state title team that went 16-0 under then-coach Mike Vallery, that beat Dallas Lincoln in double overtime in Waco.
This year’s Bulldogs were the only team to beat No. 1-ranked Carthage, the eventual 4A-DII state champion. And they conquered the ghost of not being able to beat Chapel Hill in the playoffs, finally doing so, 30-6. They also had beaten them in the regular season, 54-9.
Kilgore again won the District 9-4A, Division I championship: their only loss was to Henderson on a last-second field goal.
They did not allow more than 18 points to any team in the playoffs except Celina (and those 18 points came in a 60-18 win over Navasota). That state title game appearance was Kilgore’s first since 2013, and with all the talent returning, talent like quarterback Kayson Brooks, receiver Lakeyleon Graves and defensive lineman Cameron Christian, the Bulldogs and their fans hope their next appearance is this December.
No. 3: Overton High School baseball.
The Mustangs were late bloomers this year, but they really turned it on in late March.
They lost two of their first three games, one a run-rule to Gladewater, and another run-rule game to Frankston a week later. After losing a district series to Harleton, though, they run-ruled Waskom on March 25, and began to turn it around.
They reeled off 10 wins, into the playoffs, including a must-win after La Poynor forced them into a single-game playoff in the first round of the 2A playoffs. In round two, the Mustangs swept Bowie. Gary beat Overton in game two, and then Overton won back-to-back games to sweep the series. They swept Beckville, beat Burton in game one and game three, and then of course lost the state title game to Collinsville this past week at Dell Diamond, 12-0, a game that was MUCH closer than the final.
Overton went 31-9 overall, and that was their third trip to the state baseball tournament.
They lost coach Chris Cook right after the game, as he accepted a position as the head coach at Jacksonville, and a talented senior class has graduated (Bryson Bobbitt, Jayden Edwards, Braxton Harper, Mason Rowe, Bryce Still, and Joey Zalman). But a BUNCH of talent returns, including players like Brody Brown, Landon Hill, Rylan Holleman, Gabe Miller, Jacob Osburn, Nolan Hill and Sterling Galvan. They’ll be a factor, a big factor, next year.
No. 4: Kilgore College Lady Rangers basketball.
Glass ceiling of Trinity Valley and Tyler Junior College, consider it shattered.
The Lady Rangers flew under the radar much of the season, winning at home (a 12-2 record at Masters Gym) but an 8-5 mark on the road and a 10-loss season. But they did finish 24-10, and most impressively, they went to Lee College in Baytown and beat the two strongest teams in the conference this season – the aforementioned Trinity Valley and TJC – in the semifinals and finals of the Region XIV Conference Women’s Basketball Tournament.
KC won the tournament for the first time in decades, and in doing so, made the NJCAA National Tournament for the first time since 1993, when they were led by coach Evelyn Blaylock. KC won their first game there, beating Walters State (Tenn.), then lost to No. 1 seed Chipola (Fla.).
KC, in 34 games, averaged 76 points, 38 rebounds, and 16 assists per game – they averaged 44 percent in field goal shooting and 64.6 percent from the free throw line per game.
The Lady Rangers are coached by Stephanie Williams, who was also named the Region XIV Conference coach of the year. Her assistant, Brianna Brooks, was named assistant of the year. Talk about cleaning up.
No. 5: Tatum High School volleyball.
This is team that absolutely dominated their competition.
Coach Leven Baker’s Lady Eagles finished the season with a 40-6 record, an 87 percent winning percentage. They went 17-0 at home, and went 12-0 in district play, obviously winning the district championship.
They were 9-2 on the road, and 14-4 in neutral site games. They spent much of the season ranked either number three or number two in the state in Class 3A in the Texas Girls Coaches Association volleyball poll. At one point, they had a 20-match win streak, from Aug. 31 until their playoff loss to Ponder on Nov. 15 at Forney.
Here’s more from Box.County, because Homes.com isn’t the best; he is.
And the best of the rest:
No. 6: Henderson High School softball.
No. 7: Tatum High School girls basketball.
No. 8: Troup High School football.
No. 9: Gladewater High School girls track & field.
No. 10: White Oak High School football