Mount Gilead surges past Northmor in second half

By ROB HAMILTON

After watch­ing his team over­come early foul trou­ble to top North­mor 54–38 on the road Fri­day night, Mount Gilead coach Tom Cooper feels his team is tak­ing steps towards meet­ing their potential.

“They played like war­riors in the sec­ond half — I couldn’t be more proud of them,” he said. “Basi­cally, this team is just now find­ing its iden­tity. Every team is dif­fer­ent and these guys are start­ing to cap­i­tal­ize on their strengths.”

To do that against the Knights, Mount Gilead had to endure early-game foul trou­ble, as senior Ethan Har­ris picked up three first-half fouls and spent large amounts of time on the bench in the first two quarters.

North­mor also got out to a fast start in the game, get­ting a three-pointer from Daniel Don­ner, a shot and free throw from Gar­rett Karcher and a pair of foul shots from Robert Lee to take an 8–2 lead mid­way through the first quarter.

How­ever, Chris God­frey came off the bench to score five points before the first quar­ter came to a close, which helped bring the Indi­ans within a 10–8 margin.

Cooper noted that Godfrey’s con­tri­bu­tions helped his team stay in the game in the early going.

“Chris God­frey in the sec­ond quar­ter was huge,” said the coach. “Not only did he make shots, but he had five rebounds in the sec­ond quarter.”

Nei­ther team could get an advan­tage in that sec­ond period. While Don­ner scored six points dur­ing that time for the Knights, the Indi­ans had more bal­anced scor­ing with both Michael Bland and Mike Chat­field scor­ing three and both God­frey and Pay­ton Van­derkooi pick­ing up two.

Vanderkooi’s points came on two free throws that ended the first half’s scor­ing with both teams hav­ing 18 points.

Unfor­tu­nately for the Knights, the Indi­ans would pick things up on offense in the third quar­ter. Six points from Xavier Har­ris fueled an 11–2 run to open the period.

After a Lee three-pointer brought North­mor within a 29–23 mar­gin, Mount Gilead got another bas­ket by Xavier Har­ris, fol­lowed by four Van­derkooi points to take a 12-point lead.

The Knights would fin­ish the quar­ter with a bas­ket by Zach Wise­man, but still trailed by 10 with eight min­utes to play.

The Indi­ans wouldn’t waste much time in the fourth quar­ter putting the game away. After a Don­ner free throw to open the period, Mount Gilead went on a 14–1 run that effec­tively clinched the win for them.

Xavier Har­ris tal­lied eight of his team’s points dur­ing that span, as he fin­ished the game with 17 points, 16 of which were scored in the sec­ond half.

“It’s always tough going on the road and win­ning,” said Cooper. “The biggest key was Xavier Har­ris. He dom­i­nated inside — we had him at 18 rebounds — and when you have some­one clean­ing the boards like that, it makes win­ning on the road easier.”

What made Cooper hap­pi­est about the win was his team’s defense. Not only did they hold the Knights to under 40 points, but also held top return­ing scorer Wise­man to 10, most of which came in the final moments of the contest.

“North­mor can be really hard to guard because they drive and kick and shoot the three,” said the coach. “So we have to play team defense and these guys do a nice job. Pay­ton Van­derkooi takes a lot of pride in his “D” and I haven’t seen a bet­ter on-ball defender in the area.”

Besides Xavier Har­ris’ 17 points, Mount Gilead got 12 from God­frey and nine by Ethan Har­ris. North­mor was led by Wise­man and Don­ner, both of whom scored 10.

Posted by Rob Hamilton on Dec 19 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.