The Pettus Eagles finished in third place in their New Year’s basketball tournament last week with a win over the Runge Yellowjackets.

“For the first time in the eight years I’ve been hosting our round-robin tournament, we had a three-way tie in pool play and had to go to points-allowed to determine seeding for the final games,” said Pettus head coach Steve Marbach.

The Nordheim Pirates, Tuloso-Midway JV Warriors and Pettus varsity were all tied at 2-1 in pool play. Nordheim had the fewest points allowed, so they played for the championship against Austwell-Tivoli.

The state-ranked Redfish won easily by about 30 points, according to Marbach. The Eagles edged the T-M boys in points allowed in pool play by two and advanced to the third place contest. The Eagles beat the Yellowjackets by 10 points to claim the third place trophy.

The Eagles placed two players on the all-tournament team as post Ryan Beck and forward Hunter Tomlin were selected for their fine play in the tournament’s contests.

The tourney also featured a three-point shooting contest and Eagle Clay Brown took the top spot with his dead-eye shooting touch.

“We’ve only got about two weeks until district, and we are still very inconsistent. At times, we look great,” Marbach said.

“But, then there are still other times when we do not play very well. Hopefully, we can pull it all together in the next couple of weeks and then make a strong district run.”

The Eagles were at home on Tuesday night to play the Bloomington Eagles. The varsity boys will then travel to Nordheim on Friday night to tangle with the Pirates.