Region or non-region, Perry hosting Peach County High in
basketball will fill up the Panther gym. It’s never a good idea to show up
late, or leave early.
Even with Perry’s boys ahead by as much as 16 in the fourth
quarter, it wasn’t until Jamal Bagley made one free throw with a little over
three seconds left in regulation time that the Panthers could feel that victory
was in hand. Perry won 57-53 Saturday in the first of what will be nine home
games in the 2013 portion of the season.
What Bagley did was a bit of a rarity for Perry in the final
2:29, which was the last time all game that the Panthers were up by double
figures. Brett Hardy’s team missed six foul shots with only two other makes,
and the coach knew afterwards that’s one of the reasons why they had to hold
off any victory celebrations.
“I thought the effort was good; I thought the free-throw
shooting was bad,” said Hardy. “With the Perry-Peach County game, it’s always
going to be tight no matter what happens. We build a 16-point lead and, I don’t
know, something happens. That’s kind of concerning, but at least we won the
game.”
Deonte Soloman, off the bench, was the only Panther in
double figures with 14 points. Everything else was balanced between Bagley, who
finished with nine, and K.J. Smith and Larry Felder, each scoring eight.
Reginald Bryant, the point guard sparking Peach’s comeback
effort, led everyone with 15 points.
The majority of this game was a battle between Perry’s
desire to use its depth and create a fast pace offensively and defensively and
Peach County’s need for a slower tempo to utilize some of its size mismatches
inside and make the Panthers deal with a halfcourt zone.
“We wanted to run and get some easy baskets,” said Hardy.
“But, talking to coach Wray before the game, he wants to slow the game down.
“Being sound fundamentally in our man-to-man defense was all
we tried to do. The only thing that hurt us is when we tried to overplay and
steal too much. When you don’t get the steal, you’re a man down (5 on 4), and
they made us pay for it.”
Soloman entered the battle early when Smith, who has had
numerous scoring games in the 20s and 30s already as a sophomore, needed to be
looked over for a possible ankle injury. The senior, after Perry reversed the
basketball around the 2-3 Peach zone, sank a 3-pointer to supplement two
turnovers created by Jalen Walker. Marquez Thomas pulled off a crowd-pleasing
spin move on the run, the result being a 12-4 lead for the Panthers.
Peach County did much better offensively when it was able to
set up and throw the basketball inside. At 1:57, the Trojans put back a missed
foul shot, and at 1:15 an inbound basket closed off a run of eight in a row
tying the score.
Smith returned to the floor, and with his no-look assist to
Thomas Perry was able to stay out front 16-13 as the second quarter began.
The Trojans enjoyed the advantage for the first time as one
of their forwards, Avery Mitchell, passed the ball inside to guard Darrell
White. Displaying patience with his pump-fakes, White gave the visitors a 17-16
lead.
The Panthers, meanwhile, were searching all over the gym for
a field goal. Bagley found one at 4:50 with what was a fifth-chance shot. The
result was a three-point play and tied game 19-all.
More than two minutes later, Soloman and Bryant traded
3-pointers. Peach had two treys in a row to lead by five, 27-22.
Perry answered
by turning up the speed and getting a pretty reverse lay-in by Soloman. Smith
also streaked down court to score when Peach tried to knock the ball off him
out of bounds.
At 5.3 seconds, the Panthers tied the game, but the Trojans
used that time for a quick strike from forward Saire Davis. When officials
called the foul, the game clock stopped at 0.2. Davis was on the foul line,
sank one, but missed his second. The ball bounced back to his hands, but those
same officials said his successful follow-through was not released in time.
Peach was still ahead 28-27 to start the second half, and
Perry went on another long hunt to find a way to score from the floor. Bagley
was the one to come through at 5:37 from more offensive board work. Since Peach
wasn’t hot either, the game had one more tied score 30-30.
Facing the zone, Felder sank a 3 at 3:03 for 33-30. That
began a big stretch of contributions from Felder and Mark Riley, who did not
see any court time in the first half. Thomas rebounded a Bryant miss and fed
Riley on the opposite end, while Felder’s offensive rebound and pass to
Jamarkus Davis capped off a 9-0 run (37-30).
Both Felder and Riley came up with clutch steals, and
Riley’s put-back ended the period scoring. The Panthers led 39-32 as the fourth
began, then Felder’s second-chance trey had it at double figures for the first
time.
Perry had a hard time getting baskets in the halfcourt until
the 4:12 mark when Thomas used a turnover and found a cutting Bagley. That put
the margin at 16 points, but for Peach County a 13-0 run was about to begin.
Bryant’s 3-pointer plus a press turnover helped slice the
lead down to five, 50-45, with 1:33 remaining. The Trojans found much more
success at the foul line with four makes.
Hardy was going through his timeouts to stall the Trojan
momentum and refocus his charges. Perry ended the run, and Soloman took a pass
underneath for 2 at 1:14. The Panthers traded good plays for bad, Felder
blocking a Bryant drive after Perry earned a charging foul when the score was
54-50.
Bryant would score from 3 at the six-second mark to make it
56-53, but Bagley made one of his two attempts, which was enough to prevent
that one game-tying shot.
“We’re just trying to approach it one game at a time,” said
Hardy, who already had four Region 2-AAAA games before Christmas with a 2-2
record. “We’ve been going with five guards, and it’s been working pretty well
when we can apply pressure. We hadn’t shot the ball well the past two games,
which has frustrated them.
“But we have four posts we can play, and they do a good job.
We try to work some size on the floor with Chris (Clerkley), but you can tell
he’s a freshman.”
Smith comes into the Panther varsity lineup with a lot of
basketball experience, and Hardy said he’s accustomed to scoring baskets.
“(Our seniors) have meshed with the young guys,” said Hardy.
“I’m as proud of them as anybody because they have had to take a back seat and
lose some playing time. They’ve shown leadership, haven’t pouted about it and
tried to be a good teammate. They know how to defend, and they have to teach
the young guys how to defend. It’s been worth it.”
GIRLS ACTION
Speaking of freshmen, Peach County High girls basketball has
a sensation of sorts in point guard Nausia Woolfolk, who already led the Lady
Trojans to a big win this season against Warner Robins High.
On Saturday, Woolfolk had 25 points with a handful of
steals, blocks and assists as Peach topped Perry 54-33.
Jeff Winston’s defense covered the inside well when Woolfolk
was looking to throw the basketball inside. Then starting forward Keeley
Winston picked up two early fouls, and the home offense had a bad start with
cold shooting, even on second-chances.
The Lady Trojans went ahead for good when Woolfolk had seven
points in a spurt to a 9-5 lead. Curshala Riley, beating the full-court press,
scored Perry’s first basket in that stretch at the 3:30 mark.
Aaliyah Cheatham, the top Lady Panther scorer with 12
points, took a second-chance baseline to bring her team as close as it would
get, 12-9. Two other Peach players, Jordan Davis and Tekeyah Everett, sank
3-pointers on the way to staking the visitors to 17-11 after one quarter.
Perry’s missed shots inside piled up in the second quarter,
and Woolfolk’s penetration upped the advantage to 10, 23-13.
Yoshi Shennett, a
freshman off the Lady Panther bench, made an incredible defensive stop
underneath. Deja Robinson, another substitute, followed in Shennett’s miss.
That, however, was the last for Perry in the half. Peach
out-ran the home team to get open players for long outlets off missed shots,
and with that it was 30-15 at the half. Perry’s foul shooting was 5-for-13, but
Peach was not successful there either at 4-for-16.
When the Lady Trojans led 34-15 in the third quarter, the
Lady Panthers had one more surge starting with a Cheatham 3 at 6:21. Shennett
scored five in the quarter as Perry pulled within 11, 36-25.
The rest, however, belonged to Woolfolk with nine in a row.
Down by 20 to start the fourth, Cheatham added one more 3-pointer, and Riley
scored two times from the offensive glass.
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