Warner Robins thaws in time to sweep season series against Houston County

WARNER ROBINS — To say that Warner Robins (3-2) and Houston County (3-2) were cold on Tuesday would be an understatement.

Neither team broke 30 points or scored more than 13 in a quarter in the first half of the Demons’ 52-36 win. The Bears never broke out of the ice and scored six points through most of the final two periods. They got up to 11 points in the final two minutes after the game was over.

Despite getting out in transition often HoCo just couldn’t convert on their looks. Threes didn’t fall, layups rolled off the rim. It was one of those inexplicable nights where things just refused to go your way.

Warner Robins grabbed rebound after rebound and failed to convert on second, third and sometimes fourth chance shots. Their threes didn’t fall either.

It was the definition of a rock fight, but the Demons eventually warmed up with a 12-2 run in the third that eventually blossomed into 24-4 and 31-11.

“We just kept at it man,” Demons head coach Jamaal Garman said. “[In the] first half we were getting looks, we were getting great shot attempts, layups, and just missing them. That’s what we kept saying on the bench, like we just missing shots right now.”

Garman was visibly frustrated with his team in the first two quarters and he made sure to address the issue at halftime.

“Moving the basketball,” Garman said on what the team did better in the second half. “Sometimes in the first half right there we were over dribbling for no reason. I don’t know why it turned into a dribbling contest, but once we stopped doing all that and moving the basketball now we got people wide open attacking.”

Freshman K.J. Johnson was the only Bear to reach double figures with 11 points to go with three triples. Josh Jackson had seven points, and scored the first HoCo points in the second half with 3:31 left in the third quarter.

Gavyn Williams led Warner Robins with 16 points and was 4-of-5 at the line. Rykeem Ashley followed with 14 points, 12 of which came in the second half.

As far as the misses off of offensive rebounds, Garman has one adjustment his team can make:

“We just gotta score, ain’t no way around it,” Garman said with a chuckle. “I mean we literally right there at the rim and we’re throwing it in the corner of the rim or over the other side of the rim. We just gotta score it man.”

UP NEXT

Warner Robins will make the trip to Tifton to play Tift County on Thursday, Dec. 4 at 7:30 p.m.

HoCo will also hit the road as they head to neighboring Peach County to face the Trojans on Friday, Dec. 5 at 7:30 p.m.