Hilltop boys, led by Faith alum, defeat Conquerors

By Rudy Coggins
Published in Sports on January 9, 2015 1:48 PM

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rcoggins@newsargus.com

Bobby Stocks always appreciates returning to Faith Christian and recalling his days on the basketball court.

But he comes home for a different reason -- as head coach of Hilltop Christian School. And boy, Stocks has undoubtedly been tough on his alma mater in recent years.

Justin Scott poured in a game-high 24 points, in including seven in the fourth quarter, as the Chargers handed the Conquerors a 64-53, non-region loss in N.C. Christian Schools Association 2-A play Thursday evening.

Hilltop claimed its seventh straight win over FCA.

"Our last four losses have been overtime losses and we wanted this one," Stocks said. "Plus, being my alma mater, they know it's a grudge match for me and they want to come here and win every time. The boys always enjoy playing here at Faith.

"And I always enjoy coming back."

The Chargers (11-7 overall) needed just 41/2 minutes -- in the opening quarter -- to seize command of the game. Working a three-man weave offense to near perfection and waiting patiently for the screen to develop, Hilltop reeled off 13 straight points.

Scott drained two of his four 3-pointers during that stretch, which forced first-year Conquerors head Stephen Hardison to burn a pair of 30-second timeouts.

"That weave action up top ... our movement on the screen was so slow, almost like we were flat-footed," Hardison said. "Sometimes it's hard to put your finger on it. At any second, they'll slip a screen that we didn't handle well or they just take it to the basket.

"It's something we're definitely going to work on (in practice) because that's the second team we've seen use that this year."

That wasn't Faith's only problem.

Hilltop employed a box-and-one defense against Conquerors' sharp-shooting guard Richard Sasser. Cody Alonso drew the assignment of keeping Sasser in check and held the junior to five points below his season average.

Sasser tallied 15 points.

"Tonight, Hilltop did a great job on it," Hardison said. "When Richard doesn't have the ball, it's like we're lost in our offense. It was out of kilter and when he didn't have the ball it was like 'what do we do?'"

The Conquerors (2-8) dropped behind by as many as 12 points in the second half, and trailed 50-37 heading into the fourth quarter. Faith pulled to within 59-50 on Sasser's NBA-range 3-pointer, but Hilltop sealed the outcome at the free throw line.

"We played aggressive on defense the entire game," said Stocks, who received 14-point scoring efforts from Andrew Scott and Jared Crist.

Christian Mills put on his work boots and helped pace Faith's attack with a double-double -- 13 points, 13 rebounds. Christopher Mills provided 11 points, four assists and two blocked shots.

Ryan Collier dropped in seven points.