Flyers Knock off No. 1 Storm

Going into Wednesday's basketball game at Heins Gymnasium, the five Sandhills Community College sophomores had yet to taste victory in their clashes with Region X rival Davidson County C.C.

That was on the mind of all of them, including Jeremias Easterling who sat out Monday's game at Guilford College because of an ankle sprain suffered the game before.

"It hurt a lot," the 6-foot-7 forward said, "but I played Davidson five times in my career and never beat them. I'm a sophomore and this could have been my last chance. I wasn't worried about the pain."

From the moment that 5-8 guard D'Angelo Harris snatched a teammate's miss and scored on the opening possession of the game, the Flyers never trailed. They led by as many as 30 points on the way to a 115-101 victory.

Before a full house at the Hangar, all five of the sophomores were double-figure scorers led by Josh Smith with 21 points. Harris added 16 followed by Zezva Liluashvili with 15, Easterling with 14, to go with 13 rebounds, and Christian Lathan with 12. Freshman Juwaan Childs contributed 10 points. Easterling and Harris each recorded five assists.

The Flyers made 62.7 per cent of their shots from the field (42-for-67) and won the battle on the boards 41 to 30. Coach Mike Apple's squad improved to 20-5 overall and 5-2 in Region X while the No. 1 ranked Storm (NJCAA Division III poll) dropped to 21-2 and 7-1.

Guards Lathan and Harris, Easterling, and freshman forward Shane Garrison, helped set the early tone at both ends of the court with an almost fanatical intensity.

"We just wanted to get after them on every possession and push it every time we got the ball," Harris said.  "Good things happen when we do that."

A basket inside by Childs gave the Flyers their first double digit lead at 18-8 at the 12-minute mark of the first half. Two threes in a row by Luke Moore and one by Lathan helped swell the margin to 29-14.

The frenetic pace was causing both teams to turn the ball over often, but with just over three minutes remaining in the half, Harris scored in transition to make it 48-27.  Smith finished the first 20 minutes with 14 points and the Flyers took a 58-41 advantage into the intermission. Then Lathan and Harris each had two steals during a dizzying 16-4 run in the first four and a half minutes of the second half that saw the margin grow to 74-45.

"It was a beautiful thing," Apple said. "At the beginning of the first half, and at the beginning of the second half, our intensity level was a high as I've seen by a Sandhills basketball team.  I was really pleased with the defensive intensity and offensively we made good decisions and shared the ball."

The Storm closed the gap to 107-94 with three minutes remaining in the game, but the Flyers coolly canned 13 of their final 15 free throw attempts, including seven in a row by Liluashvili, to help maintain a comfortable margin.

"I guess it's just experience," Liluashvili said of the poise shown by the team down the stretch. "We've been through a lot of tough games and been in tough situations.

"I know the people out there have been waiting for this game and we tried not to let them down. We gave everything we had and I'm glad we got the win. I'm just proud of my team."

Next for the Flyers is a 7 p.m. home date with Johnston Community College (5-14 and 0-6) on Saturday.  After that they have four more regular season games before the Region X tournament on February 25-26 hosted by Central Carolina CC.

"We talked about this being the only guaranteed time we play them (Davidson) again," Apple said. "Now we may get a chance to do it again in the conference tournament. That would probably mean a trip out of state to continue our season."

The Flyers have reached the 20-win plateau for the fifth time in Apple's six years as head coach. It is six of the last seven including athletic director Aaron Denton's final season at the helm.

In its second year, Heins Gymnasium was rocking Wednesday evening like never before.

"This is a scene you imagine when you build a place," Denton said. "Almost every seat was filled and beyond that it was an electric atmosphere. People were into the game and I don't think our kids could have played better."

Davidson – Ritter 4 0-0 8, Rothrock 2 0-0 5, Wright 1 0-0 2, Tripp 1 0-0 2, Brann 0 0-0 0, Coats 3 2-2 8, Campbell 4 1-1 10, Hill 2 0-0 4, Sanders 5 4-6 15, Lipscomb 4 0-0 12, Mateen 0 0-0 0, Masten 5 6-6 16, Crutchfield 7 4-8 19 Totals 38 17-23 101. Sandhills – Lathan 4 3-4 12, Harris 6 4-5 16, Smith 8 3-6 21, Easterling 5 4-5 14, Harrell 1 0-0 2, Liluashvili 3 7-7 15, McCrimmon 1 0-0 3, McFadden 2 0-0 5, Thomas 1 0-0 2, Moore 2 0-0 6, Field 3 0-0 7, Garrison 1 0-0 2, Childs 5 0-0 10 Totals 42 21-27 115. Three-point goals: DCCC 8 (Lipscomb 4, Rothrock, Campbell, Sanders, Crutchfield; SCC 10 (Moore 2, Liluashvili 2, Smith 2 Lathan, McCrimmon, McFadden, Field). 

by Charlie Bergmann

Photo by Donna Ford