West Point's Will Cochran.

HANCEVILLE — His eyes brimming with tears, Tim Willoughby lost himself in thought on Saturday night.

The Cold Springs coach — his team having just knocked off twice-defending champion Good Hope 53-48 to collect its first Cullman County Basketball Tournament crown since 2014 — sat stoically on the bench as the annual showdown drew to a close and his players celebrated excitedly around him.

But the win, grand as it may have been, wasn’t the first thing that entered his mind at Tom Drake Coliseum.

Instead, Willoughby thought about Joey Graves — the grandfather of senior Brodi Williams who died after a battle with COVID-19 back in December.

He also thought about his late wife, Regina, whom he lost to cancer in November 2018.

“The connection is that about four or five of these boys go to church, and they were raised in church where we go,” an emotional Willoughby said. “My wife was always active with the kids, and she would have known these boys since they were in diapers. From a personal standpoint, that’s what I thought about right there.”

Brody Peppers and Seth Williams, meanwhile, were more than happy to enjoy the victory for their coach.

“This is the greatest moment of my life, and I think it’s one of the greatest moments of coach’s life the past few years,” Peppers said.

Added Williams: “It’s awesome for us, but he deserves it. He’s a good coach, and I love him.”

The clash itself was tightly contested throughout and — like most, if not all, championship classics — came down to the final few minutes.

Adam Hill put the Eagles in front 42-41 with a free throw before a Tanner Kilgo bucket made it a three-point game with 2:35 left.

Cold Springs then began to distance itself at the free-throw line — the Eagles sank 12-of-19 attempts in the final frame, while the Raiders made just 8-of-16 — eventually crafting a 50-42 lead with just 33 seconds left.

Good Hope, though, didn’t go quietly.

Tanner Malin drained a 3-pointer to make it 50-45, and then the Eagles committed an offensive foul.

On the Raiders’ ensuing possession, Malin was fouled on another 3-point attempt and made all three shots from the charity stripe to pull his team to within two points with 13 seconds remaining in the matchup.

Good Hope then sent Peppers to the line, where he drained the first attempt — handing the Eagles a 51-48 advantage — before misfiring on the second.

Luckily for Cold Springs, Seth Williams pulled down a crucial offensive rebound and drew a foul.

Two free throws and a long-awaited buzzer later, and the victory was officially in the record books.

“I knew it was time to step up and put it away and ice the win,” Williams said of his key moment. “I wouldn’t have it any other way. I wouldn’t have any other team. No matter how many times you do it, your nerves are always going to go crazy in these close games. It was a good one between both teams. No one really got a big lead, but we came back and hit our free throws like we do.

“We’ve been in this situation many times, and we just kept our heads, kept our composure and kept fighting through it until we got the win.”

Peppers echoed his teammate’s sentiments.

“We’ve done this multiple times,” he said. “It’s something we see often. We always, somehow, seem to pull it out. I think that’s what makes us great and what helped us win the county tournament.”

For Willoughby, he enjoyed the tooth-and-nail nature of the game far more than he would have in the past.

“There was a time earlier in my career that I would be entering a game like this that I knew was going to be nip and tuck and back and forth,” he said. “And you knew for the next hour and a half it was going to be pins and needles. I went 15, 20 years of that, and it started to wear on me. I came close to losing the fun of it and walking away. But these ones aren’t painful anymore. You know that nobody is running away from anybody.

“For me, it was stay in each possession and try to win this little battle for myself and for the players. And that is the way you get through games like this. That’s what I preach to them, and that’s what we do. This team is one that has closed out a lot of fourth quarters really well. And they did that tonight.”

Seth Williams paced top-seeded Cold Springs (17-5) with 12 points.

Hill (11), Micah Calvert (11), Kilgo (11) and Peppers (eight) rounded out the scoring.

Malin, meanwhile, notched a game-high 24 points for the third-seeded Raiders, who fell to 18-7 this season.

Lawton Farr (11), Noah Barnette (five), Colton Lindsey (five) and Charlie O’Neil (three) also contributed.

As Willoughby watched his players slice down the net — a fond memory that will unlikely fade over time — and snap pictures that will always be at the ready to remind them of their tremendous accomplishment, the longtime coach did his best to come up with the right words to describe this particular group.

“We’re not flashy, and we’re not spectacular in any way,” he said. “But the thing that stands out to me about this squad is the consistency they’ve shown throughout the season. We have four or five guys who average 10 to 12 points a game. We’ve been behind in a lot of fourth quarters and come back and won.

“There’s no doubt they believe they’re going to win. They believe it. And I think belief in anything can and will carry you a long way. And that belief carried this team to where it is now.”

---

All-Tournament Team

Tanner Malin, Good Hope

Colton Lindsey, Good Hope

Zach Campbell, Hanceville

Izayah Glenon, Hanceville

Tanner Kilgo, Cold Springs

Roberto Ayala, Cold Springs

Brody Peppers, Cold Springs

Adam Hill, Cold Springs

Micah Calvert, Cold Springs

Will Cochran, West Point

Lawton Farr, Good Hope

---

All-County Team

Micah Calvert, Cold Springs

Brody Peppers, Cold Springs

Adam Hill, Cold Springs

Tanner Malin, Good Hope

Noah Barnette, Good Hope

Lawton Farr, Good Hope

Aubry Cleghorn, West Point

Kobe Bowers, West Point

Will Cochran, West Point

Izayah Glenon, Hanceville

Will Rhodes, Vinemont

Owen Yarbrough, Fairview

---

Eli Thomas Memorial Scholarship

Lawton Farr, Good Hope

---

Joe Shults Award

Will Cochran, West Point