Carmel Christian over whelms GDS
Carmel Christian 63Greensboro Day 52
joe.sirera@greensboro.com
GREENSBORO DAILY RECORD
Greensboro Day found out Thursday night what it must have been like to play against thBengals the past few years. An expe-rienced Matthews Carmel Christian team went into
Dillard Gym, played strong defense and went home with a 63-52 victory in NCISAA boys basketball.
A Cougars team with five seniors who will be playing Division I basketball nextseason disrupted Greensboro Day’s half-court offense and hit 10 3-pointers to show why they are ranked No. 2 in the state behind only Concord Cox Mill by MaxPreps. DeAn-gelo Epps (College of Charleston) led Carmel Christian with 16 points, Myles Pierre (Houston Baptist) scored 13 and Donovan Gregory (Appalchian State) had 10.
“It doesn’t hurt to have five seniors who have Division I scholarships,” Cougars coach Joe Badgett said. “There’s a maturity level there this year.”It also doesn’t hurt to shoot as well as Carmel Christian (22-1) did from beyond the 3-point arc. GDS coach Freddy Johnson said he didn’t expect that kind of marksmanship from the visitors.
“The one thing they hadn’t done much this season was make 3s,” Johnson said. “We went zone and we thought that was a great move, but they hit those 3s. The bigger problem was
we didn’t convert anything. In our half-court offense I don’t think we scored five baskets in the first half, and in the second half we weren’t much better.”
After a sluggish first half for Greensboro Day that ended with the Bengals (16-5) trailing 26-18, they closed to 28-24 when Nick Evtimov followed a missed dunk by Josh Taylor with 5:40 to play in the third quarter. But Taylor landed hard on the play and left the game with what wasinitially diagnosed as a severely bruised tailbone.
“It hurt us when Josh got hurt,” said Johnson said. “It took the air out of the gym.”
Carmel Christian regained momentum with a 15-3 run that continued into the fourth quarter. The Cougars led by as many as 20 points twice in the final period before the Bengals made a late surge.
“When you’re playing in this building you’re going to take that offensive performance all day long,” said Badgett, a Reidsville native. “Our whole thing is to defend and share, play for each other. We did a great job defensively. ... Offensively we were really good in the second half and our defense was pretty solid the entire game.”
Johnson knows his Bengals have a lot of work to do before the NCISAA Class 4-A playoffs. But they won’t have to deal with Carmel Christian, which is a 3-A school.
“If we don’t become more consistent we can’t win states,” Johnson said. “I’m not as concerned about the defensive end as I am about the execution on the offensive end. That’s
been our killer all season.”
Carmel Christian 63Greensboro Day 52
joe.sirera@greensboro.com
GREENSBORO DAILY RECORD
Greensboro Day found out Thursday night what it must have been like to play against thBengals the past few years. An expe-rienced Matthews Carmel Christian team went into
Dillard Gym, played strong defense and went home with a 63-52 victory in NCISAA boys basketball.
A Cougars team with five seniors who will be playing Division I basketball nextseason disrupted Greensboro Day’s half-court offense and hit 10 3-pointers to show why they are ranked No. 2 in the state behind only Concord Cox Mill by MaxPreps. DeAn-gelo Epps (College of Charleston) led Carmel Christian with 16 points, Myles Pierre (Houston Baptist) scored 13 and Donovan Gregory (Appalchian State) had 10.
“It doesn’t hurt to have five seniors who have Division I scholarships,” Cougars coach Joe Badgett said. “There’s a maturity level there this year.”It also doesn’t hurt to shoot as well as Carmel Christian (22-1) did from beyond the 3-point arc. GDS coach Freddy Johnson said he didn’t expect that kind of marksmanship from the visitors.
“The one thing they hadn’t done much this season was make 3s,” Johnson said. “We went zone and we thought that was a great move, but they hit those 3s. The bigger problem was
we didn’t convert anything. In our half-court offense I don’t think we scored five baskets in the first half, and in the second half we weren’t much better.”
After a sluggish first half for Greensboro Day that ended with the Bengals (16-5) trailing 26-18, they closed to 28-24 when Nick Evtimov followed a missed dunk by Josh Taylor with 5:40 to play in the third quarter. But Taylor landed hard on the play and left the game with what wasinitially diagnosed as a severely bruised tailbone.
“It hurt us when Josh got hurt,” said Johnson said. “It took the air out of the gym.”
Carmel Christian regained momentum with a 15-3 run that continued into the fourth quarter. The Cougars led by as many as 20 points twice in the final period before the Bengals made a late surge.
“When you’re playing in this building you’re going to take that offensive performance all day long,” said Badgett, a Reidsville native. “Our whole thing is to defend and share, play for each other. We did a great job defensively. ... Offensively we were really good in the second half and our defense was pretty solid the entire game.”
Johnson knows his Bengals have a lot of work to do before the NCISAA Class 4-A playoffs. But they won’t have to deal with Carmel Christian, which is a 3-A school.
“If we don’t become more consistent we can’t win states,” Johnson said. “I’m not as concerned about the defensive end as I am about the execution on the offensive end. That’s
been our killer all season.”
