Charger boys turn back Faith Christian-RM in CPIC semifinals
By Andrew Stevens
Published in Sports on February 20, 2011 1:51 AM
Working as a cohesive unit, Wayne Country Day made sure it got the rematch with Greenfield it wanted.
The Chargers worked together offensively all night, placed three players in double figures and defeated Faith Christian-Rocky Mount 73-51 in the Coastal Plains Independent 1-A Conference tournament semifinals on Friday night.
Junior Brandon McCarter scored a game-high 24 points, Tyson Pearson contributed 19 points and Hil Tanner added 14. Senior Josh Gregory played the role of distributor while getting teammates involved in the offense and finished with nine points.
"We were much more aggressive on the offensive end," said Wayne Country Day head coach Terry Jones. "We were moving the ball and finding high-percentage shots instead of settling for the long-ball. Brandon McCarter was huge for us tonight."
Faith managed to slow the game's tempo during the first quarter but Gregory's 3-pointer and layup, and baskets from Pearson and Aaron Forde put the Chargers in front 17-8 after one quarter.
Wayne Country Day forced six Patriots turnovers in the second quarter, got out in transition and built a 29-17 advantage at halftime.
"It was a fight," said Jones. "Initially they did a great job of containing the tempo on their end. Offensively, they did a good job of moving the ball around and taking up a lot of time on their end. We battled all night long trying to control to the tempo. Clearly, when we were able to dictate things worked in our favor."
Pearson and Tanner scored seven of the Chargers' first 11 points of the second half as the lead swelled to 40-22.
McCarter scored 14 of his 24 in the second half and finished with nine rebounds.