The Tioga Bulldogs varsity basketball team traveled to Eddy over the weekend to compete in the 2025 Bruceville-Eddy Tournament, where they finished third at the event held Dec. 4-6.
The Bulldogs got off to a slow start, opening the season with back-to-back losses, but found their footing in the tournament, going 3-2 over the three-day event.
“We played good competition, including some 6A and 5A teams with a lot of size and speed, and won one of those and should have won the other,” said Stephen Fewell, Tioga head boys basketball coach. “We beat Bruceville-Eddy’s varsity team the last day to get third. … We got better, and that’s what we really cared about with this tournament.”
Tioga went 2-1 to open the tournament before closing the event with matchups against the Frost Polar Bears and the Bruceville-Eddy Eagles.
The Polar Bears took the win 25-24, but Fewell said he was proud of the way the Bulldogs played defensively in the contest.
“We put on a defensive clinic,” he said. “We just missed a few key shots, especially at the end there, but our defense continues to get better and better and plays with a lot of intensity.”
Tioga’s defensive prowess was on display again in its final contest, where the Bulldogs held Bruceville-Eddy to 14 points to take the win 43-14 on Saturday.
Point guard Ramsey Washington led the Bulldogs with 15 points a game, followed by Quesyn Arrington, who was the team’s second leading scorer at the tournament and hit five three-point shots in the win over the Eagles.
Fewell said he believes the challenges the Bulldogs face now will pay dividends when the team enters the district portion of their schedule.
“The guys understand that we’re trying to schedule a harder competition to prepare for the hard district that we’re in,” he said. “Instead of going out there and finding weaker opponents, we want to play games against stronger teams, and I hope we take away confidence from these games. [Frost] is averaging upwards of 60 points a game, and we just held them to 25, and our goal is to keep getting better.”
Tioga will travel to Saint Jo to compete in the Saint Jo JV/Varsity Tournament on Thursday, Friday and Saturday.
The Tioga Bulldogs celebrate their third-place finish at the Bruceville-Eddy Tournament hosted at Bruceville-Eddy High School on Dec. 4-6. Photo Courtesy of Tioga ISD
