Warner Robins falls to Southwest Atlanta Christian Academy to end Day 1 of Screamin’ Demon Invitational

WARNER ROBINS — Warner Robins’ (4-7) offense struggled as Southwest Atlanta Christian Academy’s (11-0) Corey Harris loomed over the paint Friday night, helping the Warriors to a 71-55 win over the Demons.

It’s not often you see a player with the height and length of Harris, who is listed around 6-foot-10 and 190 pounds. His wingspan made it so no shot down low was out of his reach, and SACA planted him firmly in the painted area all night.

It made it nearly impossible for Warner Robins to finish at the basket in the half court, and it clearly was in the mind of drivers as several opted for a pass out instead of going up for a shot. Several were swatted and a couple pinned to the backboard.

The Demons only scored four points in the second quarter as the margin widened to 20 and the Warriors took a 31-11 lead into the half.

Warner Robins head coach Jamaal Garman is at a loss as to what else they can do to avoid these kind of slow starts.

“We try to do things in practice that give us a fast start in practice, but it’s just not translating to the games,” Garman said. “We do a free throw shooting drills where you got five minutes to make 100, we made 120 the other day in five minutes. But then we come to the game, we miss 20…The first drill we do before we even stretch is a full court speed drill where you’re making layups under a time. We made the time, we made the layups, but it just ain’t translating to the game, man.”

But Warner Robins came out in the second half with a heightened intensity and tried to chip away at their deficit.

They were more aggressive driving to the basket and into the chest of SACA’s big defenders. Some shots were still sent beaming out of bounds, but they also earned more trips to the free throw line.

“He’s going to try to block every single shot, when you go in there jump into his chest,” Garman said on the halftime adjustment in regards to Harris. “We finally started doing it. Tyler Harris did a good job of it today, I think Tyler might have got maybe three fouls on him. But we did a good job of jumping into his chest once we started figuring out what to do and how to attack it.”

Rykeem Ashley stood out in particular. He crashed the glass hard often fighting for the ball among several Warriors. He also drew the fifth foul on Harris after tipping a pass in the fourth quarter.

“I love Rykeem. He’s my Dennis Rodman,” Garman said. “He’s relentless. I just wish I had like eight more of them like him, just go play hard. He doesn’t care about stats, he just wants to play hard enough to give his team a chance to win.”

But unfortunately for Warner Robins they never could quite pull back into the game.

SACA got behind the defense for key buckets at several points and the Demons still missed a lot of shots at the rim even with Harris out of the game. The intensity and effort were there but the execution was lacking and a slow start once again put them behind the sticks in the second half.

UP NEXT

Warner Robins will play Northgate on Saturday at 3 p.m. and SACA will follow at 4:30 p.m. against Westside-Macon in the final day of the Screamin’ Demon Invitational.