Game Report on Page and Smith boys basketball from the Metro 4-A Tournament Final:Saturday Morning Rewind and here comes the Sectionals

Final went Page 72, Smith 64 and Page was able to get themselves a 12 point lead, but they could never put Smith away in the second half….Smith would go on a 6-0 run and then they would be right back in the game….JJ Watson kept Smith coming, but they would only get so close and then Page would turn ot Ty Graves or Anthony Eaves and they would score the next basket, or turn to Jeremy Harris or Xavier-Hill Mais on the inside and they would finish things off for the Pirates….Jalen Seegars had a complete game for Page with rebounds, blocked shots. steal and strong defensive play….Seegars does a lot of the little things that go unnoticed in the box score, but he is doing his part to get that victory….Page pretty much went 7 deep and their scoring went like this…
PAGE:
Ty Graves 20
Jeremy Harris 18
Antohny Eaves 12
Xavier Hill-Mais 9
Jalen Seegars 8
Diondre Overton 2
*****Numbers courtesy of Dennis White*****

SMITH numbbers:
JJ Watson 31
Ramon Pratt 12
Kendrick Lowe 6
AJ Rogers 4
Aaron Simpson 4
Devonte Phillips 4

JJ Watson kept on getting Smith to the foul line and hit most of those free throws….Smith used 9 players and Coach Partee did a good job of subbing offense for defense….You would think that Smith might have got more going on the inside, but they could not get any real advantage with Phillips and Lowe….Hill-Mais has been like a bull on the boards lately for Page and he gets plenty of help from Seegars and now Overton and as always, Harris…Harris had two monster alley-oop dunks that got the crowd jumping, but every time Page got that nice edge, JJ Watson put Smith on his back and carried them back into the game….

Nice win for Page and the Pirates played with a renewed intensity after their close call with Grimsley in Double OT, back on Wednesday….

Let’s get those sectionals cranking and I’d like to see a few games with Page, Dudley and Smith facing teams like Northwest Guilford, Southwest Guilford and East Forsyth and that goes for both sides of the gyms, the girls side and the boys side….Probably going to see a steady doseage Mount Tabor, West Forsyth and maybe Reagan next week and a few of the lesser known Charlotte-area schools, early in the week…..Schools like Myers Park, Olympic and Hough will be tough eventually, but we probably won’t see those teams until the regionals….

The regular season is over and the post-season is pretty much upon us and it is time to looking for those sectional pairings coming in from the NCHSAA…

Back to the girls side of things, I was impressed with the play of Campbell Kargo and Tiana Sherman for Page on Friday night and with Breana Hardnett from Southeast Guilford….Kayla Phifer from SEG could never get her game untracked and it just wasn’t going tonight, but you have to hand it to Sherman, she was hustling all over that court on Friday night and she may not have been making all of her shots, but she got rebounds, made some key passes, played help defense and gave her team a chance to win, when Paris Kea left the game with injury in the 4th quarter….

Kargo was hitting some real nice shots and someone told me that kid is just a freshman and I said not any more, she is playing like a junior now…..Kargo has a lot of dribble in her and she has learned when to give up the ball and when to keep the ball and she gets very deep and close to the basket on her penetration drives and she can from the field or from the foul line with her left hand….

Hardnett did fold when the pressure came at her on Friday and she stayed true to her game and kept on working to get her SEG Falcons back in the game….Hardnett knew the game plan and she stayed the course, even if the end results were not what she came looking for and she will learn from her experience from Friday in the Metro 4-A Finals…..Smooth and steady night for Hardnett under some tough game conditions….

You also know you have a real good player with you, when they go all out and get hurt like Paris Kea did, going into it that hard, fighting for every loose ball that comes your way and having to leave the game, like Paris did, with a bandage on the side of your face…

Good job and good seasons coming out of tonight/Friday for Coach Jones, Coach Newton, Coach Able and Coach Partee…..There is not a coach alive that would not have loved to have been there and all four of these folks were along for the ride and they rode it out and made it count…..