MOULTRIE — The Colquitt County boys basketball team can break a drought that has spanned more than a half-century when it travels to Stone Mountain to meet Redan High at 6:30 p.m. Friday in the first round of the Class AAAAA boys basketball tournament.

The last time a Packers basketball team won a state tournament game was on Feb. 27, 1953, when Moultrie High team defeated Commercial High of Atlanta 49-48 in the first round of the Class AA state tournament.

The 1952-1953 Packers were coached by Jim Nolan and were led in scoring that night by Jimmy Herring, who had 26 points.

Eddie Moncrief, Dykes Barber and Gayle Manley each had six points against Commercial High. Ray Ellis added five.

Moultrie was eliminated the next night by Rossville, but made the state tournament again the next year, losing in the first round to Smith High of Atlanta.

Only the 1983 and 2002 Colquitt County teams have qualified for the state tournament since then and neither could win a game.

In 1983, the Region 1-AAAA champion Packers exited in the first round in Savannah, losing to Laney High of Augusta.

In 2002, the Packers went to Tifton to meet Lovejoy and came out on the short end of a 76-67 score.

If Kirven Davis’s team is to get the first Packers state tournament victory in 53 years, it will have to be done on Friday against a Redan team that finished second in the Region 2-AAAAA tournament.

The Raiders won over Newton 61-44 and Douglass 74-59 to reach the tournament championship game. But they were no match for the Tri-Cities boys, now 26-2 and ranked No. 4 in both The Associated Press and coaches polls, and lost in the finals 68-56.

The Raiders are led by senior Sylvester Egbe, who averages 17.0 points and 11.2 rebounds a game.

Another senior, Cedric Dixon, averages 8.4 rebounds a game. Jabari DeShields and Robert Murray are the team’s top 3-point shooters.

Colquitt County’s boys went into the Region 1-AAAAA tournament having won just one of its previous seven games, but knocked off Coffee 57-51 in overtime in the opener to qualify for the state tournament.

For the third time this season, the Packers took Tift County down to the wire, but fell in a semifinal game 52-47 in a game that was tied with 50 seconds left.

The Packers then rolled over Lowndes on Saturday 55-50 to claim the No. 3 seed and thus avoid having to play Tri-Cities on the road.

The Packers will take 14-13 record to Stone Mountain on Friday and have won three of their last four after a six-game losing streak.

The Packers got an outstanding tournament from senior center James Trimble, who continues to play bigger than 6-foot-1.

Against Coffee, Trimble had just six points, but came down with 11 rebounds. He had 12 rebounds to go with nine points in the loss to Tift County.

In Saturday’s win over Lowndes, Trimble had one of his most productive games of the season, scoring a season-high 22 points and grabbing 10 more rebounds.

If the Packers can knock off Redan, they will play at 5:30 p.m. Friday, Feb. 24, against the Newnan-Groves winner at the Macon Centreplex. The third-round games will be played there the next night, with the semifinals and finals moving the the Gwinnett Arena on March 2 and 3.

Also on Friday, Region 1-AAAAA champion Houston County will play host to Lithonia, the No. 4 team from Region 2-AAAAA.

Region 1-AAAAA runner-up Tift County will meet Douglass High at the Arena.

Lowndes, which finished No. 4 in the tournament, will travel to meet Region 2-AAAAA tournament champion Tri-Cities in East Point.