Summerville Boy’s Defeats Wando, Host St. James Tuesday In AAAAA Lower State Quarter-Finals
By Billy G. Baker
Publisher
Summerville — The Summerville Green Wave boys’ basketball team (22-2) placed three players in double figures, in a dominating second round AAAAA playoff win over visiting Wando (17-11) Saturday night to advance to the quarter finals against St. James at home on February, 20.
St. James (22-3) advanced with 61-51 win over Berkeley.
The game was never in doubt as the physical and athletic Green Wave led 23-5 after the first quarter before cooling down to lead the Warriors 32-25 at the half. The Green Wave out-scored Wando 26-17 in the third period to take a 58-42 lead into the final period. Final score, Summerville topped Wando 72-49.
For the game, Green Wave junior point guard Melvin Teal paced the Wave with 19 points, followed by senior KJ Brown with 17 points and junior center Yasir Smith had 15 points and led the team in rebounds. Senior guard Yannick Smith, headed to East Carolina on a football scholarship, had 9 points and numerous assists, in the win. Sophomore ZJ Jenkins contributed 8 points. Summerville made 10-of-13 free throws as well.
After the game Green Wave head coach David Long said the team’s new focus is playing well against St. James at home this Tuesday night. “I can tell you; we are not looking ahead to Florence and the Lower State finals at all,” said Coach Long. “St. James has only three losses. Looking past them would not be a wise move. Anything can happen in the playoffs. You can have a hot shooting night or a cold shooting night, and not get the breaks, so anything can happen.
“I do believe that we have a very good team, and I am not going to try and hide that,” said Coach Long. “We just have to focus on getting ready to play St. James is a top three ranked team in the state with a lot of weapons. They won a very tough region against strong teams like Sumter and Conway.”
Coach Long was concerned about his team’s play in the second quarter after getting out to an 18-point lead after the first period against Wando. “We have had a few games where we build a comfortable early lead and then it seems like we get a little relaxed, or maybe a little too cute and teams get back in it. We challenged the team tonight at halftime to move on from the poor second quarter and to finish out the game the right way.”
Wando was led by senior Kari Murdock, with 22 points, and he made four three-point shots from NBA range during the game. Junior Tait Horine had 8 points for the Warriors while junior Owen Scaffer and senior Jaheim Weston contributed seven points each.
After the game Wando head coach Calvin Craft told the HSSR, “This is our best season in around 9 years,” said Coach Craft. “I am very proud of all five of our senior players and we miss all of them.”
The senior starters against Summerville included Murdock, senior guard Chris Antonelli and Weston. The remaining two seniors for Wando are forwards Andrew Young and Hudson Ingrassia.
“Murdock is certainly a capable shooter, and he shot well tonight, but over-all he shot the ball better last season but he was on tonight,” said Coach Craft. “These guys helped us create a culture and and a good foundation for the program going forward. Summerville is a little bit ahead of us right now but we are closing the gap. We do not have too far to go to catch up.”
Coach Craft is finishing up his second season as the head coach at Wando High after spending seven seasons with the team as an assistant.
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