BOYS' BASKETBALL: Cougars avenge loss to Blue Devils

By News-Argus Staff
Published in Sports on February 6, 2017 9:59 AM

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By BEN COLEY

bcoley@newsargus.com

Three weeks ago, South Lenoir ran Eastern Carolina 2-A Conference foe Goldsboro out of Munn Gymnasium in Deep Run.

The Blue Devils handed the Cougars an embarrassing 40-point loss.

They had 21 days to think about that loss and all of that pent-up frustration bubbled up into an absolute flame thrower Friday night.

After only scoring 44 points in the first meeting, Goldsboro bullied its way to an 88-75 victory and forcefully completed its revenge over the Blue Devils on Friday evening.

 "I think the biggest motivation for us was that we're in a fight for a playoff spot," said Cougars' head coach Russell Stephens. "It's tight here with the bottom four teams, and right now, we talked about we have three games until the (conference tournament).

"Our mindset now is the three games we have left, we want to win."

That mindset became apparent in the third quarter, much to the irritation of the South Lenoir coaching staff.

The Blue Devils took a 35-34 lead into halftime, but that advantage quickly disappeared. South Lenoir committed three turnovers in the first minute. Goldsboro then sprinted to a 14-2 run in just two minutes and 16 seconds.

"I liked our energy coming out of the half," Stephens said. "We were going to play that zone defense because we felt their legs were getting tired. And they were chucking it from the outside from the corner like we wanted them to and where we could get the rebound and push it down the court."

The early timeouts called by South Lenoir head coach Jeremy Barnett could not stop the bleeding. By the end of the third quarter, Goldsboro had built a 66-47 lead. South Lenoir committed seven turnovers and scraped together just 12 points in that third quarter.

The Cougars registered 32 points in the stanza. Goldsboro's two shifty guards -- Daryl Gaddis and Jaryan Hargis -- combined for 20 points in the fiery period.

"One big difference was we were at home, and (at South Lenoir) we were coming off a double-overtime loss to Kinston," said Stephens, describing the change in play from the 40-point loss. "And I think that game was still weighing on us. But take no credit from South Lenoir, they shot the lights out at their place."

The Cougars never allowed South Lenoir to get any closer than 13 points in the fourth quarter. Too much damage was done in the third stanza for the Blue Devils to muster a comeback.

Hargis led the Cougars with 31 points while Gaddis added 16 points and six rebounds. Shamon Wooten paced the Blue Devils with 18 points.

Stephens is hoping for one final push from his squad as the regular season winds down. Goldsboro is battling for third place in the league.

"You're carrying out a task now," Stephens said. "You're assignment is to get three (wins). Well, you can't get three if you don't get one. So we got one, so two hopefully runs into three. But none of them are going to be easy."