Fike downs Eastern Wayne
By Andrew Stevens
Published in Sports on December 5, 2009 11:56 PM
Wilson Fike closed puts its foot to the gas and Eastern Wayne simply sputtered to the finish line.
The Demons closed the game on a 15-8 run and earned a 71-62 non-conference road win on Friday night.
Will White's layup pulled the Warriors to within 55-54 with less than four minutes to play before Fike took control. The Demons' Sehulyer Jones and Jerel Williams combined to scored 12 of their team's final 15 points.
Williams finished with a game-high 28 points and Jones had 21.
Eastern Wayne (2-2) committed costly turnovers and watched Fike reel off 10 unanswered points to build a 67-56 advantage.
"We made a couple of turnovers and they capitalized on it," said Warriors head coach Marvin Bowman. "I thought we played like Warriors all the way until the end we just made some unfortunate turnovers right there at the end."
Trailing 65-56 with less than two minutes left, Eastern Wayne watched precious seconds tick off the clock while electing not to foul despite not having enough team fouls to send the Demons to the free throw line. Rather than foul, the Warriors saw roughly 30 seconds melt away as the game clock dipped under a minute before deciding to foul.
"We wanted to play aggressive and the defense was doing pretty well," said Bowman. "Then I realized, 'wow, we don't have enough fouls to put anybody on the line.' It was a timing issue with not having enough fouls. We realized we probably should have started fouling sooner."
A 12-5 run to end the second quarter allowed Eastern Wayne to take a 30-29 lead into halftime.
White led the Warriors with 16 points and Marvin Bowman Jr. added 12.
Eastern Wayne travels to Goldsboro on Tuesday.