Good job by Don Moore to get up all of our award winners from Saturday at the Coliseum and Don also did fine job producing our Championship broadcasts last evening here on the site….
I was really proud of the way the Grimsley Whirlies played in the boys championship game and you can’t say enough about the effort turned in by the Northern Guilford Nighthawks to reach the finals and lead in the final before falling to Grimsley.
Northern had beaten Grimsley earlier in the year, 70-65, but not last night. NG was led by Jon Frye and Dylan Berry, but John McBeth had to leave the game early with 5 fouls and never was able to really contribute last night for NG….
Grimsley hit the foul line in the one-and-one with just over three minutes to go in the third quarter of the second half and the Whirlies were in the double-bonus with one minute left in the third quarter and they hit their free throws/charity tosses….
Carter Gourley, a senior and a leader for the Whirlies, was a perfect 8-8 from the line and the Whirlies as a team shot 25-32 from the charity stripe. Burrell Brown, the Grimsley point guard, was injured in Thursday’s semifinal win over NEG and Burrell was wearing a brace on is knee, but this young man stepped and played 29 minutes for Grimsley and he finished with 7 points and 5 assists and he ended up going 5-6 at the foul line.
Another man of the hour was Rashad Sweeney, who became a beast in the post and Northern had no answer for Rashad in the second quarter as he went off for 13 his points and he finished with a team-high 19…When I say beast, I mean beast as R. Sweeney also hit the boards for nine big rebounds…..Northern threw the house at R. Sweeney in the third period and that is one reason that John McBeth ended up fouling out early…..Daniel Downing and Joe Daniel also tried to slow down Rashad, but the only way they could stop him, was to foul him and they did….
Lee Sweeney was also very steady for Grimsley with 11 points and Lee went 5-6 at the foul line and his brother Rashad, who we were just talking about, was 5-7 at the line. Jake Mulvey gave the Whirlies some huge bench minutes and he hit a three-pointer, from the left side, late third quarter/early fourth quarter, and that was the game-changer, according to Whirlie coach Darren Corbett……
Krechaun Williams was strong for Grimsley throughout the entire tournament and he ended up being named the tournament’s Most Valuable Player….Williams had 12 points and played a key role in the Whirlies winning the title with his ability to get to the basket, complimented by his outside shot and his work on the boards in following his shots…Lee Sweeney led the Whirlies with 9 rebounds on Saturday…..
Northern was paced by Jon Frye’s 20 and Dylan Berry’s 16 points and even though the Nighthawks led 13-10 after one period, I could sense some frustration on their part when they didn’t take the title…..Foul trouble plagued the Nighthawks on Saturday night and Patrick Chandler and Jalen Ross split duties at point guard and they both took turns trying to keep up with Burrell Brown and that is no easy task….Ross did turn in one of his top performances of the season with 8 points, which included two key three-point baskets…..
Daniel Downing led the Hawks with 9 rebounds, but the Hawks as a whole didn’t seem to have the same spark that they did against Greensboro Day the night before….Maybe some tired legs, after working so hard to knock off the top seed, one day earlier…..
It was a great tournament and we will have more on the girls coming up later today or some time on Monday morning….