Boyd and Quiller Impressive in Their Flyer Debuts

Sophomore Will Boyd of the Sandhills Community College basketball team has not played in a regular season game since March of 2018 as a member of the team at Catawba Valley CC.

A red-shirt last season when the Flyers won the Division III National Championship in Rochester, MN, the 6-foot-9 forward from Charlotte shows promise of providing his team with a strong presence in the paint when the regular season gets underway in January.

In the Flyers' first scrimmage against USC Salkehatchie 10 days ago, Boyd led the team with nine boards. Last Wednesday against Fayetteville Tech he was 9-for-12 from the field, scored 19 points and grabbed six rebounds.

Teammate Bryan Quiller, a freshman, also scored 19 to go along with a team-high 11 rebounds. In a game the Flyers led by two points at the intermission, the visitors exploded in the second half to hand Coach Mike Apple's squad a 133-104 loss.

"The first game was a little shaky for me because I was a little nervous," Boyd said before a practice on Friday, "but in the second game I felt like I used to play. It felt good."

Boyd, who played high school basketball at Elevation Prep, is 23-years old and Apple likes the maturity he brings to the table.

"Will Boyd leads our team in diving after loose balls on the floor after two scrimmages," the coach said. "It's pretty rare for a 6-9 kid to be leading his team in that statistic.

"Will is a mature guy and he's physically strong. I thought he was really effective against Fayetteville Tech. I'd like to see him get his arms up more not just to be a shot blocker, but a rim protector which I think is going to develop as the season progresses."

Boyd is working on an Associates Degree at Sandhills with a plan to obtain a degree in Criminal Justice at a four-year college.

"My main focus is to get my degree so after basketball I have something to fall back on," he said, "but I'd like to play basketball overseas."

The 6-foot-5 Quiller was a freshman at Cary High School when Elijah Idlett, one of the standouts on the Flyers' national championship team, was a senior. Idlett has scored 17 points in each of his first two games for Montreat College.

"He was lockdown defense," Quiller recalls from watching him play. "You could always count on him to shut the other team's main player down."

Apple recalls Idlett putting in a good word to the Cary coach about the Sandhills program when he was recruiting Quiller.

He averaged 17.7 points and 9.9 rebounds per game as a senior at Cary, including 10 double-doubles.

"When we recruited Bryan I saw a guy I thought could get a lot better," Apple said. "He's a good athlete, he jumps really well and he has size. The thing we like is that he is so active around the glass, not just offensively, but also defensively."

Quiller also led the Flyers in scoring with 18 points against USC Salkehatchie.

"I feel like I bring a lot to the team," he said on Friday. "In games you'll always see me try to spark something and get other people involved. I try to do everything to the best of my ability to help the team get a win."

The other leading scorers for the Flyers against Fayetteville Tech were sophomore Savion Staton with 12 points, and sophomore Zion Bailey and freshman Dharyus Thomas with nine each.

Apple was asked how his team responded at practice after the poor second half performance against Division II Fayetteville Tech.

"They were down which they should have been," he said. "That was embarrassing what we did in the second half. When they made their run I wanted to see how we were going to respond and see where we are at. It wasn't the outcome I wanted obviously, but it was a learning deal."

The schedule currently includes a scrimmage at Catawba Valley on Saturday, November 21 and a home date against St. Andrews on Monday, November 23. No spectators are permitted per COVID protocols.

Wednesday's performance notwithstanding, Boyd thinks that the returnees as well as last season's red-shirt players and the freshmen are excited about the challenge of making another championship run.

"They hear us talk about Minnesota and they see the rings," Boyd said, referring to the newcomers. "They want to get where we were last year and I think they're pretty excited.

"The older guys have to keep motivating the younger guys, tell them to keep their heads up, listen to the coach and buy-in. When we get our routine down pat and our chemistry, we'll be good."

C. Bergmann