Goldsboro boys stay in the driver's seat

By Andrew Stevens
Published in Sports on February 6, 2013 1:47 PM

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Goldsboro took another step towards a Carolina 1-A Conference regular-season title Tuesday evening.

Rosewood endured a second straight difficult league loss.

The Cougars used an 18-2 first-half run to build 13-point lead, and an eventual 63-47 road win over the Eagles. Goldsboro (14-6 overall) won its ninth consecutive game and improved to 7-0 in conference play.

The Cougars' Damarian Henderson finished with 19 points and nine rebounds. Lonzia Tyson supplied 10 points and eight rebounds. Rasheen Artis also had 10 points.

Rosewood's Jyonte Raynor led all scorers with 20 points. Dee Mabry had 10 points, while Dennis Mitchell provided eight points and 13 rebounds.

Goldsboro scored the final three points of the first quarter to tie the game at 13-13.

The Cougars attacked the rim and got to the free throw line in the second quarter. Rasheed Jackson's layup capped an 18-2 run and extended Goldsboro's lead to 28-15.

"The big thing for us in the second quarter was we started going inside out," Cougars' head coach Russell Stephens said. "When we started doing that, we were able to get some easy baskets and then our guards were able to knock down some uncontested shots on the outside."

The Eagles (13-5, 4-3 CC) trailed 33-19 at halftime and began the third quarter on a 14-2 run that was fueled by three 3-pointers from Raynor. Mitchell's layup off Raynor's assist pulled Rosewood to within 35-33.

"We started the third quarter off fairly well," Eagles' head coach Daniel Mitchell said. "Then everything seemed to go wrong. We got some guys in foul trouble, and they got out in transition and got some easy baskets. We just kind of ran out of gas a little bit."

Goldsboro responded with a 9-0 run of its own while controlling the glass and limiting Rosewood's second-chance opportunities. Henderson and Tyson combined for eight of the nine points during the run which stretched the deficit to 44-33.

"Damarian and Lonzia did a tremendous job," Stephens said. "Lonzia changes shots defensively and we're getting a lot better now at rebounding after he changes shots. Damarian is doing a great job and Julius Murphy was around the glass tonight as well."

The Eagles trimmed the margin to 48-39 entering the final quarter, but the lead swelled to 57-41 fewer than three minutes into the fourth quarter.

The Cougars play host to Princeton on Friday, while Rosewood entertains Spring Creek.