Flyers Triumph Over Patriots in Crucial Region 10 Battle

The Sandhills Community College basketball team took down Patrick and Henry Community College 85-83 in a back and forth thriller on Wednesday evening and gained control of first place in Region 10. 

Coupled with the forfeit of an earlier game by the squad from Martinsville, VA because of an ineligible player issue, the Flyers move to 16-6 overall on the season and 6-1 in conference play, with their sixth win in a row. The Patriots had to forfeit several other games as well and dropped to 8-9 and 3-4. 

"That was a postseason game," said Coach Mike Apple, "We were playing for positioning in the tournament.  They had been playing really well leading up to this game, and so had we."

After taking a 43-40 lead into halftime, the Flyers allowed the Patriots to go on a run which put the visitors up by five early in the second half.  The Flyers regained the lead late in the second half and held on, capped off by a big three from sophomore Isaiah Nelson to put the team up by two possessions with about two minutes remaining.  Clutch free throw shooting down the stretch by Damien Robinson denied the Patriots a chance to come back. 

"I don't think we capitalized on enough opportunities in the first half," said Apple, "We were only up three at half and we should have been up by 10.  When you leave that kind of door open, teams usually capitalize and hats off to them, they did.

"I think our kids showed a lot of resilience. We really buckled down and ran our offense.  Defensively, at times, we had some of the best defensive stops that we've had all year." 

Sophomore Ayden Gittens was the Flyers leading scorer with 18 points and also led in steals with four.  Robinson had another double-double, scoring 15 points and grabbing 13 rebounds, with nine of the thirteen on the offensive side. He was also 7-for-8 from the charity stripe.  Sophomore Jamori McDougald led the team with six assists, while also scoring 13 points.  

"Ayden was ready to play tonight and he did a good job offensively," said Apple.  "You can't say enough about Damien Robinson and we hit a lot of timely threes. Isaiah hit a shot that was a timely and so did Demyron Williams, so those were big for us too."

The Flyers are back in action on Saturday when they travel to Georgia to take on Oxford College of Emory University (1-5, 3-14) at 1:00 PM.

T. Ratcliff