BOYS' BASKETBALL: Greenfield eliminates WCDS from NCISAA 1A playoffs

By Ben Coley
Published in Sports on February 18, 2017 11:06 PM

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bcoley@newsargus.com

WILSON -- It didn't really matter what Wayne Country Day did on defense.

The Chargers couldn't stop Greenfield's 3-point barrage, its mid-range game and certainly not its drives to the basket. The Knights couldn't miss if they tried.

Wounded early into Saturday's matchup, Wayne Country Day never recovered and lost 87-70 in the quarterfinals of the N.C. Independent Schools Athletic Association 1-A boys' basketball playoffs.

"We couldn't get stops," said WCDS head coach David Flowers. "(Greenfield) played terrific. They ran their stuff, and we couldn't get stops. We were fighting an uphill battle the whole time."

Four different Knights combined for five 3-pointers in the first quarter. Greenfield held a 23-11 edge after the opening stanza.

By halftime, the deficit ballooned to 42-23. The Knights committed only three turnovers in the first half.

"We were just talking about trying to stay in the game," said Flowers, regarding the halftime discussion. "Not looking at the halftime deficit, and just trying to go in there and keep playing hard. Attack them when we could. I knew we could get to the basket...And we talked about stopping Coby (White)."

The Chargers did a better job of getting to the basket, but it became clear that the strategy to stop White was not going to work.

The junior scored 10 points in the third quarter and 18 more in the fourth quarter. The North Carolina recruit finished with a game-high 39 points. Greenfield's lead never dipped below 19 points in the second half.

Jimmie Sanders paced the Chargers with 28 points, while Jamal King added 24. The duo combined for about 74 percent of Wayne Country Day's offensive production. The next highest scorer was Cole Atwood with six.

Flowers said he was pleased with the Chargers' success this season, which includes a 19-11 record, tying for the regular-season conference title and reaching the quarterfinals as a No. 6 seed.

The veteran coach believes the future looks bright, but only if the younger players put in the effort.

"We did some things that WCDS teams in the past haven't done," Flowers said. "We did some big things this year. But I also told them, we have a ways to go, for the younger guys especially. The younger guys can go out there and go to work now. And work on things to make ourselves better."