Flyers Focusing on the "D" after Surviving a Barrage of Three-point Shooting at Lees-McRae
The Sandhills Community College basketball team heads into an important stretch of the basketball season searching to recapture the defensive consistency it began to display back in the month of December.
The Flyers eked out a 106-102 road victory on Saturday against a Lees-McRae junior varsity squad that canned 12 threes in the first half and 17 overall. Parrish Stevons put together another strong all-around game for the Flyers that included 18 points, six rebounds, three assists and five steals. Mason Harrell added 15 points and five boards.
Coach Mike Apple's squad (15-4 overall, 3-1 Region X) travels to Sanford on Wednesday for a 7 p.m. conference game against Central Carolina CC (10-12, 2-3).
After allowing only one team to exceed the century mark in the first seventeen games both Davidson County CC and Lees-McRae have done it in the Flyers last two outings.
"They were in a good place before Christmas," Apple said of his team, "and we haven't been able to get back there. Our working point right now is to be more consistent and make the other team have to work hard for a basket every time it has the ball.
"Hopefully the weather will allow us to get back into our routine and you will see that defensive pressure pick back up. We have the potential to be a good defensive team."
While the Bobcats were putting on the long distance show in the first half on the way to a 62-59 advantage, the 6-foot-8 Harrell and 6-6 Shane Garrison helped the Flyers keep pace with strong inside scoring.
Late in a back and forth second half, Harrell fouled out and was replaced by 6-4 freshman Zion Copeland. In 10 minutes of action the product of Northern Vance High School scored 11 points and grabbed six rebounds. Two games ago he put together his first double-double as a Flyer.
"Zion came up big for us," his coach said. "He got some key rebounds and made some key baskets. He's really trying to elevate his game right now."
Other double-figure scorers for the Flyers were Tavarus Peterson with 13 points, and Donnie Haith and Damauri Sexton with 10 each. Haith was the leader in assists with seven. The Bobcats were 17-for-39 in outscoring the Flyers 51 to six on shots from beyond the arc.
Apple was encouraged by his team's improvement on defense in the second half.
"When you allow 62 points in the first half, and only 40 in the second, something obviously changed," he said. "We did a lot better job getting out on the three-point shooters and trying to get in front of people. We were able to put together 20 minutes of pretty good defense and that's why we won the game."
The Flyers defeated Central Carolina 116-83 back in early December in a game that was also played in Sanford.
"It's a new year and I expect they'll be ready for us," Apple said. "We have to be ready for sure."
Flyers Extra – The Flyers were ranked No. 8 in Last week's NJCAA Division III poll. Four of the Bobcats were members of the varsity squad that defeated Limestone 88-72 later on Saturday. Three of them played in both games and the four accounted for a total of 37 points against the Flyers. Make-up dates for the two postponed games have the Flyers meeting the Pfeiffer junior varsity next Monday in a 3:45 p.m. road game and hosting Hines Prep on Thursday, February 15 in a 7 p.m. tip-off. Josh Smith, the Flyers leading scorer a year ago, poured in a season-high 17 points, including five treys, for Fayetteville State in a 78-62 loss to Livingstone on Saturday. For a historical perspective on the subject of threes, the Flyers were 18-for-26 on threes in a 139-83 win over Carolina Prep on February 15, 2009 with SCC Hall of Famer Germann Bostic accounting for nine of them in a 47-point effort. The previous month Bostic also had nine threes on the way to a 50-point game.
by Charlie Bergman
photo by Donna Ford