Indians overcome triple-double
Published 8:12 am Friday, January 16, 2009
COURTLAND—Cedric Jones did his best to produce a different outcome, but Southampton High School held on for a 60-53 win over visiting Lafayette in boys’ basketball action Wednesday night.
Jones, a post standout, recorded a triple-double with 10 points, 14 rebounds and 10 blocked shots. Still, the Indians got the victory, thanks to the one-two scoring punch of Ronald Tyler and William Doyle, who had 22 points and 16 points, respectively.
“Ronald and Will really stepped up,” said Indians head coach Will Melbye. “Will really took the reigns tonight, and that was really good to see him be aggressive. We needed that midrange jump shot with Jones in the middle. Jones was altering a lot of shots and was really aggressive. It was a good, needed win.”
Southampton improved to 4-8 overall and 3-7 in the Bay Rivers District. Lafayette fell to 2-10.
The Indians started slow but made an 11-0 run to take a 15-9 lead after one quarter. Lafayette cut the margin to 30-28 at halftime.
Southampton began to stretch the lead in the third quarter, which ended with Doyle’s successful half-court heave.
The Indians shot 77 percent from the charity stripe. Other scorers were Lamar Ennis, Andre Rawls and Joven Powell with 6 points each and Thaddeus Stephenson with 4.
“We found a way to win,” Melbye said. “We need to get a couple more wins here to make a run at the playoffs. We’ve got to mentally be ready to play every game and stay aggressive. Those are the things we talked about the last couple of weeks. We were playing well at the beginning of the season. We were very aggressive. We went to the hoop very well. We took care of the basketball. When we went through our rough patch for a while, we weren’t taking care of the basketball. We were settling for jump shots.
“If we can do those things that we started out with, then we’re going to be just fine. I think we can do very well in the Bay Rivers District in the tournament.”
In Wednesday’s junior-varsity game, the Indians pulled out a 35-32 victory against the Rams.
SHS travels to Bruton High School tonight. The JV game begins at 5:30 and the varsity game follows. The Indians host Jamestown High School Saturday night.