Slowed Down Flyers Win With Defense at Guilford
The Guilford College junior varsity held the Sandhills Community College basketball team to 24 points below its nation-leading scoring average in Greensboro on Monday.
Nevertheless, ranked No. 1 in NJCAA Division III again this week, the Flyers continued to defend well and improved to 23-2 with an 82-53 victory. The Quakers made only 31 per cent of their shots from the field and were out-rebounded by a wide margin.
Sophomore Sayaun Dent led the Flyers with 17 points and 11 rebounds. Freshman Cameron Richardson made all six of his shots from the field and finished with 15 points. Sophomore Niem Ratliffe was the assist leader with six.
Coach Mike Apple's squad returns to action on Wednesday, meeting Carolina Christian College of Winston-Salem in a 7 p.m. start at The Hangar.
"It was a good game for us," the Flyers' coach said on Tuesday. "They (Quakers) did a good job of playing tempo basketball. They made a lot of substitutions to slow the game as much as they could. They did a very good job of getting back on defense to stop our transition game.
"Offensively they took the shot clock down to 10 seconds on just about every possession. It exposed some things we need to work on. On the other hand, defensively we were good from the get-go. We made it very hard for them to score."
Apple played his college basketball at Guilford's Ragan-Brown Field House and recalls scoring 18 points in his first game as a freshman. Following Wednesday's contest, the Flyers hit the road for Region 10 games at Oxford College of Emory on Saturday and at Johnston CC the following Wednesday.
"It was good to be able to win a game and not have to score 120 points," he said. "It gave us good film and things to work on to make us a better team, especially with the playoffs around the corner."
The Flyers' scoring average of 105.9 is the highest in both Division II and Division III. Division I Temple College (TX) leads all NJCAA teams at 111.1 points per game.
Sandhills – Idlett 6 0-1 12, Dent 7 3-6 17, Bryan 2 2-3 6, Addison 3 0-0 6, Miller 2 0-0 4, Ratliffe 0 0-0 0, Staton 3 0-0 7, Allmond 1 2-4 4, Yow 2 0-0 6, Bailey 1 0-0 2, Williams 0 0-0 0, Richardson 6 2-2 15, Davis 0 1-3 1, Medins 1 0-0 2 Totals 34 10-19 83. Guilford – Foulkes 5 3-5 13, Forbes 5 2-3 15, Drew 3 0-0 6, Neal 1 0-0 3, Brown 5 1-2 11, K. Brown 0 0-0 0, Flinchum 1 0-0 3, Ward 1 0-0 2, Harris 0 0-0 0 Totals 21 6-10 53. Three-point goals: SCC 4 (Yow 2, Staton, Richardson); GC 5 (Forbes 3, Neal, Flinchum).
by Charlie Bergmann
photo by Donna Ford