Tuesday, Jan. 26, 2010

Garner keeps rolling

The Trojans move to 8-0 in the GNRC with a 73-49 victory over Clayton.

Garner's had the won-loss record to put the Trojans on top of the Greater Neuse River 4-A Conference boys basketball standings. Tuesday night, the Trojans played like a team showing the way in the league race.

Garner drilled Clayton 73-49 to move to 8-0 in conference games. The Comets (14-5 overall) fell to 6-3 in league contests and will need much help from Knightdale — which meets Garner twice in the next week — to have a chance at the league regular-season title.

The Trojans (9-6 overall) used a box-and-one defense to limit the chances for Comets' standout Adam Parrish on offense, then methodically found its rhythm on offense, especially in the transition game.

"We want to play that quicker pace and Clayton really didn't," said Garner coach Eddie Gray. "We gave them some trouble with a little junk defense early but couldn't get into our diamond-and-one pressure as soon as I wanted to because we couldn't hit any free throws."

A game after icing its win over West Johnston at the charity stripe, the Trojans missed their first six attempts at the line on Tuesday night.

Clayton led 10-6 early but the Trojans scored 22 of the next 27 points to go up 28-15 after back-to-back layups in transition by Gavin Wilson.

Wilson finished with 14 points on the night. He was one of four Trojans in double-figures.

"We're starting to develop a rotation and some depth," Gray said. "We can go seven or eight deep and I think I went about nine deep tonight. It makes things a lot easier when you get good point guard play and we're starting to get that.

"Emmanuel [McClain] played well for the most part tonight."

McClain had just five points but he contributed several assists, including two to Dominique Reed, who was a big factor inside, especially in the first half.

Deandre Anderson thrived on the break for Garner. He put down four rim-rattling dunks on the night and finished with 15 points.

The contributions of Anderson, McClain, Reed, Donald Johnson (10 points), made Stephon Drane's game-high 19 points just one of the many reasons the Trojans prevailed.

Garner led by 11 at the half (34-23) and never let the Comets get any closer in the second half.

Clayton kept plugging away on the offensive end, even though the ball rarely found the basket. The Comets totaled 16 offensive rebounds on the night to Garner's eight, but shot just 27 percent (15-for-55) from the field.

Parrish managed to finish with 12 points to pace Clayton, despite the extra attention he got from the Garner defense.

Clayton's girls roared by Garner, 68-41, in its first outing since the Comets' memorable victory over Southeast Raleigh on Friday.