Flyers Unable to Recover from Early Barrage of Cougar Three-balls

The Sandhills Community College basketball team fell behind under a barrage of first-half threes by Central Carolina CC and went on to drop an 87-79 decision in Sanford Wednesday evening.

Nine treys accounted for most of the damage as the Cougars took a 43-32 lead at the intermission. They stretched the margin to 23 points with 11 minutes remaining in the game before Sayaun Dent, Chase Morrisette-Barnett and Calvin Ahoume helped fuel a Flyer comeback that cut the deficit to 82-79 with 30 seconds remaining in the game.

The Flyers, 20-8 overall, completed their Region X schedule with a record of 5-1 while the Cougars improved to 14-13 and 4-2. Coach Mike Apple's squad had already clinched a spot in the District 7 tournament on March 1-2 at the Hangar.

The Flyers will honor their sophomores when they close out the regular season at home against Combine Academy at 3 p.m. on Sunday.

The Flyers went into the contest with 25 wins in a row over the Cougars dating back to the first season of the basketball program in 2008-2009. But the Cougars' Jackson Reid began Wednesday's game by draining a three and teammate Ja'hari Guthrie later drained the ninth trey for the final points of the half.

Trailing 73-50 at the 11-minute mark, Donnie Haith split a pair of free throws to start a 7-0 Flyer run that included four of Dent's 18 second-half points. They made their next big move with an 8-1 burst that made it 82-79 on a baseline drive by Morrisette-Barnett with 30 ticks left on the clock. But the home team accounted for the next five points to complete the scoring.

Dent was 10-for-11 from the charity stripe and finished with 24 points to go with 10 rebounds. Morrisette Barnett and Ahoume added 12 and 11 points respectively. The Flyers committed 23 turnovers and came up empty on their only five three-point attempts. They outscored the home team 33 to 16 from the charity stripe. The Cougars added two more threes in the second half for a final total of 11.

Sandhills – Morrisette-Barnett 5 2-3 12, Haith 2 5-8 9, Smith 0 6-8 6, Dent 6 10-11 22, Ahoume 4 3-4 11, Clarkson 0 2-2 2, Ratliff 0 0-0 0, Sexton 1 4-4 6, Bryan 0 0-0 0, Williams 2 0-0 4, Walker 2 0-0 4, Davis 1 1-3 3 Totals 23 33-43 79. Central Carolina – Everett 4 2-2 12, George 3 1-2-7, Guthrie 3 4-4 11, Reid 8 4-5 23, Jones 1 1-2 3, Alston 2 0-0 5, Moore 0 2-2 2, Wright 1 0-0 2, Carver 1 1-1 3 , North 2 3-6 8, Butler 4 0-0 11 Totals 29 18-24 87. Three-point goals: SCC none; CCCC 11 (Reid 3, Butler 3, Everett 2, Guthrie, Alston, North).

by Charlie Bergmann

photo by Donna Ford