Sheetz Classic Boys Basketball (Day 2): SWG vs Southern

The Cowboys played hosts to the Storm of Southern Guilford to close out day 2 of the Sheetz Holiday Classic. The Storm advanced to tonight’s matchup with an 83-77 victory over North Davidson. The Cowboys are coming off of a convincing pounding of Andrews 85-42. Last night was Southern Guilford’s 5th win in a row, and wanted to keep the ball rolling. Could the Cowboys outrun the Storm? Southwest opened the game up on a 6-0 run by the 4:30 mark, but the Storm whirled back to take a 7-6 lead with an offensive rebound on a missed free throw at the 2:38 mark. That lead lasted 12 seconds as a Southwest 3 pointer gave the hosts a 9-7 lead right back. That was the start of a 7-0 spurt, but a basket before the horn put the tally at Southwest 13 and Southern 9 after one period.

The Storm continued the momentum with a quarter opening 3 pointer to cut it to 13-12, but yet another 5-0 spurt by the Cowboys pushed it back to 17-12 at the 5:55 mark. The Storm took advantage of some sloppy basketball on the part of the hosts to get it back to 17-16 at the 5:20 mark. In fact, the ugly possessions didn’t end there for the Cowboys as the Storm took the lead at 20-19 with 3:16 to play. More free throws by the Storm kept the surge going as they got up by as many as 25-19 at the 2:36 mark. A made free throw by Southwest finally slowed the Storm down, but then a defensive stop and a made 3 pointer made it 25-23 with 1:34 to go in the half. Southern promptly responded to get it to 27-23 with 1:22 to go. The Cowboys turned up the efficiency in those last 80 seconds for a nice 5-0 spurt to reclaim the lead as they headed into the break up 28-27.

The third quarter was a slower, choppy frame. The Cowboys scored first to make it 30-27. The teams traded some poor decisions, but Southwest got another bucket to make it 32-27. The slower paced frame then went tit for tat as the teams mirrored each other with baskets and turnovers. The only difference was one more basket by the hosts to make the score 40-37 with the hosts on top.

The final frame was a continuation of the third. The teams once again mirrored each other with possessions as the Cowboys couldn’t seem to push the lead out further than 6. The Storm surge kept pounding, but the Cowboys seemed to be able to keep them just at arms length until the 1:03 mark when Southern managed to take full advantage of some untimely turnovers to make the score 56-53 with a pair of free-throws. The Storm fouled on the next Cowboys possession, but Southwest only hit 1 to make it 57-53 with 1:00 left to play. Southwest put a solid defensive possession together and forced a turnover, and in transition a foul was called, which then led to a technical foul called on a Storm player, which then led to a technical foul called on the Storm head coach. Southwest hit 5 of 6 free throws to push it out to 62-53 which was a large enough cushion for the final 50 seconds of the game, despite some sloppy turnovers which allowed the final margin to be 66-60 in favor of Southwest.

The Cowboys move on to face off against the Burlington School in the Sheetz Holiday Classic Championship game tomorrow night. The Storm was led by Tyler Dearman with 24 points. Southwest was led by Christian Martin with (12, 4 Rebs, 2 Stls, Ast), and Jay’Den Turner with (10, 2 Asts, 2 Blks, Reb, Stl). Cam Thompson also stepped up huge tonight with 3 fourth quarter 3 pointers for his 9 points on the evening. Southwest improves to 9-3 on the season.

             1st 2nd 3rd 4th Final
Southern     09  18  10  23   60
Southwest    13  15  12  26   66

Southern (8-5, 2-1)
Tyquan McFadden 16
Prophet Black 2
Ty MacMaster 4
Tyler Dearman 24
Julius Burch 4
Tychawn Scales 4
Roman Johnson 4

Southwest (9-3, 1-1)
Cam Thompson 9, Ast, Reb
Milli Huggins 9, 3 Stl, Ast
JT Butler 8, 7 Asts, 6 Rebs
Jamell Carter 2
Christian Martin 12
Jayden Turner 10
Ty Radford Ast, Reb
Jalen Snipes 2, Stl
Cooper Cunningham 9, 5 Rebs, 2 Asts, 2 Stls
Joel Pettiford 1, 2 Rebs, Blk
Naje McClendon 4

Submitted by Greg Vlazny