(Pboro by Craig T. Greenlee Mysta Goodloe came off the bench to lead the Demons with 15 points, which included three, 3-pointers. ' Eagles from page HI son for the Eagles bagging a tournament title. Reynolds was taken completely out of its game by East Forsyth's withering zone press. All during the fust half, the fust quarter in particular, the Demons labored to bring the ball up-court without making errant passes that led to fast-break baskets for the Eagles. "We felt like this was our tournament to lose," said Sparrow, a JV returnee from last season. "Coming in, we had a lot of confidence. That's because we had a cou ple of returning players, plus all of the new sophomores we have for this season, got a lot of experience playing on last year's ninth-grade team. We felt like we could win this thing. So we came out and made our statement." Over the first four minutes of the game, East Forsyth bolted to a 15-2 lead. By the end of the first quarter, the score at that point (24-6 Eagles favor) was closer to what you might see in a football game. In ?.JllLr?> 1 ' -J -Mil!,.. " ? the process, East Forsyth continued pounding the ball inside, which created ample space for uncontested shots from the perimeter. All-tournament picks Josh Wiley and Josh Mahaffey took full advan tage. Wiley totaled IS points and Mahaffey contributed 10 points and eight assists. "During pre-game (warm-ups) I placed a lot of emphasis on being active defen sively and getting our hands in the passing lanes," Minor said. "The whole point was to make them play at our pace. When we do that, we typically wear teams down. On offense, the post softened things up for our outside game. We have some good shoot ers and they were able to knock down shots with the looks they got." The Demons' inability to generate early offense proved costly. At times, they trailed by as many as 14 points. In the final analysis, it simply was too much to over come. "For some reason, we didn't come out ready to play at the beginning of the game," said coach Mike McCulloch of Reynolds. "I don't know if it was because of me cm- if it was our kids, it's hard to tell. We let them get ahead way too much. "I liked our fight and we did get the lead down to nine. At least we made them sweat it out a little bit in the second half." Mysta Goodloe gave the Demons a much-needed spark coming off the bench. He finished the game with a team-best IS points. Ian Henderson (All-Tournament team) and Dashan Adams scored 11 points each to round out the double figures scor ing for the RJR. To its credit, Reynolds did put together a couple of second-half comeback attempts, but it wasn't nearly enough. Even when East Forsyth's lead shrank to nine points (46-37 in the third), Minor saw no reason to worry. "I was never concerned about that," he said. "Reynolds has some outstanding ath letes and scorers. 1 thought we got a little sloppy in the third quarter, rushing when we didn't have to, and turning the ball over. That's what allowed them to get scoring opportunities in transition. Anytime you do that, nothing good happens for your team." Titans finish third The consolation game for third place was relatively close in the first half. All that changed early in the third quarter when West Forsyth scored eight unan swered points. The Titans encountered no problems after that in their 64-51 victory over Mount Tabor. As things turned out, the early flurry was all that West Forsyth needed. The Titans outscored the Spartans 20-9 in the third, and that settled the issue. Mount Tabor was never able to reduce the deficit to single digits. Kelvin Johnson topped West Forsyth with 14 points, followed by JaQuan McMiilian, who had 13. Jaylon McMillon finished with 11 points. For Mount Tabor, the tournament's top seed, Dillon Bullard led all scorers with 22 points. Carson Anthis chipped in with 10 points. Championship Game East Forsyth 68, Reynolds 58 3rd-Round Consolation West Forsyth 64, Mount Tabor 51 Semifinals East Forsyth 53, West Forsyth 47 Reynolds 77, Mount Tabor 70 Quarterfinals West Forsyth 59, Reagan 54, OT East Forsyth 80, Glenn 69 Mount Tabor 94, Winston-Salem Prep 84 Reynolds 67, Lexington 51 All-Tournament Team Josh Wiley, East Forsyth JaQuan McMillian, West Forsyth Ian Henderson, Reynolds Josh Mahaffey, East Forsyth Connor Sparrow, East Forsyth (He is the Lash-Chronicle MVP.) Photo by Craig T. Greeoloe Mount Tabor's Darren Crump (10) blocks shot attempt of Prep's Jalen Crawley as Duncan Smits (21) closes in. Reign from page WT that" The Spartans led 49-37 at the half, but by late in the third quarter, the Phoenix made a big push to close the gap. Zachery Austin hit back-to-back 3s and a layup to cut the deficit to 63-61 with 1:42 left in the third quarter. Over the next three minutes, Mount Tabor regrouped and extended its lead to 77-65 with 6:33 to go in the game. Prep, now 2-5, did close to within seven points of the lead at 89-82, but Bullard scored inside with 38 seconds left to end any hopes of a t. Phoenix comeback. 'Towards the end of the fourth quarter, we made some mistakes on defense," said Harrison. "We were beaten really bad off the drive. When some one gets in the lane and scores like that, it says something about your defense. The good thing is that we have time to fix that." The game didn't start well for Prep. KJ. Watson, last year's Lash-Chronicle MVP, picked up his third foul late in the first quarter. Watson sat for a good por tion of the first half, and finished up with 14 points. Watson's issues with fouls set the stage for lyren lb Hairston to take over. Hairston went into over drive mode and fired away for 36 points to lead all scorers. Austin added 13 points and Jalen Crawley scored 10. "We played about as well as we could possibly play," said coach Bill Tibbs of Winston-Salem Prep. "KJ. got those fouls in the beginning of the game and that really hurt us. But Tyren Hairston really came through. If the ball bounces our way a little more and Zach (Austin) doesn't foul out, we might have made it a little closer. But we also hurt our chances (to win) by missing nine free throws." Wynn from page El tournament and the man who the tournament is named after. In a career that spanned 32 years, David Lash coached football, tennis and basketball at Carver, Atkins and East Forsyth. In. 1997, he was enshrined in the N.C. Tennis Foundation Hall of Fame. SW: Looking back over all the tournaments you've attended, is there any year that stands out over the others? Wynn: That would be the tournament in which the championship game went into triple overtime. Carver finally won by one point over Greensboro Smith. That was 1995, which was a very good tournament. There were no run-aways in any of the games that year. SW: In your opinion, has the tournament changed any? Wynn: There's a con /? stant change in JV teams because there's a constant change in coaches. There have been very few indi viduals who have coached JV teams for a number of successive years. So that means that each year, a dif ferent coach will bring in his different style of play. A lot of times, the JV team's style of play has nothing to do with what the varsity is doing. But even so, they've had very good play during their time (at that school). SW: What is it about the Lash-Chronicle tourna ment that has helped it to become the showcase for JV basketball in Forsyth County? Wynn: The Lash Chronicle has proven to be a preparatory tournament. Not only does this tourna ment prepare players for the Frank Spencer Classic (premier boys varsity event in Winston-Salem), but also for the competition in the state playoffs. SW: Is there a way to determine how much of a role the tournament plays ? in helping players get ready for intense competi tion? Wynn: We've had a number of teams who have represented this area well in the playoffs. Many of the members of those teams got their start in the Lash-Chronicle. This tour nament gives players a familiarity with what they can expect in top-level tournament games and the playoffs. SW: As a former ath letics director at Carver, you worked with David Lash for a number of years. What are your fondest memories of him? Wynn: My fondest memories are of him as a teacher and as a person who always put the athlete first. Coach Lash demand ed a great deal from his athletes in the classroom; that came first. If you can handle the classroom, it means that you can handle on-the-field and on-the court activities. He was a teacher first and a coach second.

Page Text

This is the computer-generated OCR text representation of this newspaper page. It may be empty, if no text could be automatically recognized. This data is also available in Plain Text and XML formats.

Return to page view