Central boys basketball team upends Parkway South

After five straight days of practice and over a week without playing a game, the Central boys basketball team was anxious to compete against someone other than themselves on Saturday.

"We had a hard week of practice. Coach had us prepared to come out strong," Central senior Andre Statam said. "We just missed playing in games. Beating each other up in practice, it wasn't fun, so it was great to be able to come out here and get a chance to compete and beat other guys that aren't your teammates."

Led by a strong 25-point performance from Statam, the Tigers didn't waste time releasing their pent up energy in a 75-54 win over Parkway South in the final game of the Tiger Shootout at Central High School.

"It was a good start," Church said about Central in their first game back since losing to Helias Catholic last Friday. "When we're able to get up and down the court and rebound well and get in transition, good things happen. We did that pretty well to start the game. We preached that all week in practice. It's kind of hard because we want to preach fast, but then if we don't have anything, we want to slow down. Having five days of practice was good for us. We were able to make some tweaks to our defense and make some tweaks offensively so that we could get good looks when the fast break wasn't there. We're not where we need to be yet, but I'm seeing some improvement."

Central (11-3) jumped out to a 14-0 lead with 4 minutes, 42 seconds to play in the first quarter and never looked back against the visiting Patriots.

The Tigers scored on their first four possessions of the game and denied Parkway the chance to get a shot off in the first three minutes of the game.

Parkway won the tip but was quickly denied a pass to the wing, thanks to Central's Al Young, who came up with a steal and dribbled over half court before dishing a pass to sophomore Kway'Chon Chisom for an easy layup.

The senior had two more steals on the Patriots' next two possessions. Each time Young came up with a takeaway, he found Statam down low for consecutive baskets to give the Tigers a 6-0 lead.

Statam was fouled on his second shot of the game, but was awarded the basket and added a free throw for a Central seven-point lead with 6:33 remaining in the opening period.

In his nine seasons as Central's coach, Church said he has not seen another player break up passes and come away with steals as well as Young.

Church attributes Young's success guarding the wings to his time spent as a cornerback on the Central football team.

"He anticipates so well. When he can make steals and get in the open court, he is so hard to stay in front of," Church said about Young. "We need that. We need to have that from Al. We were able to kind of pressure the wings a little bit and deny the ball to the wings and I think that led to some of those steals. Like I've said, from football and everything else, he's just good at anticipating things."

Young grabbed his third steal of the game, went coast-to-coast and finished with an uncontested slam dunk for a 9-0 advantage. The Central guard finished with seven steals.

Statam added another basket from inside the paint at the 5:23 mark and after Parkway missed its second shot of game, Statam held up from beyond the arc and nailed his first 3 of the game with 4:42 remaining in the opening frame.

Parkway (4-7) scored the next five points of the first on a layup by junior Justin Pettinelli and a 3 from junior Corey Barricklow, but Central closed out the half on an 8-2 run to extend its lead to 22-7.

Statam scored 12 points in the first and finished with 14 in the first half after drawing a foul 20 seconds into the second quarter to set up two points from the charity stripe.

"We always want to get the ball inside if we can. We're still working with Andre to really demand position and demand the ball. When he does that, it opens up a lot of things for us, which you saw tonight," Church said.

The Tigers scored the next four points of the game to increase their lead to 28-7 with 3:42 to play before Church removed most of his starters for the remainder of the half.

Young and senior Peyton Montgomery stayed in for the rest of the half and contributed a combined six points during another 8-2 run for the Tigers, which gave them their largest lead of the game at 34-9.

Young scored four straight points on a jumper and added two free throws on Central's next possession with 3:11 to play in the half.

Chisom stole a pass on Parkway's next trip down the court and went the length of the court before sending a bounce pass to Montgomery, who ran down the court parallel with Chisom on a two-on-one fastbreak. Montgomery caught the pass and put up a shot without a dribble and scored with 2:55 remaining.

Parkway missed 12 shots in the first half but finished on an 8-2 run to cut the lead to 36-17 at the break.

Parkway coach Mitch Stevens said Central's speed and a lack of adjusting to it in time was too much to handle for his young team.

"It was Cape Central really putting it on us right away," Stevens said. "Their zone matchup kind of flustered us a bit, and we couldn't get used to it. They were so fast that it just took us a while to adjust to their speed. We had to transition the defense a lot better and we had to attack their zone offense better. I thought we made good adjustments, but by the time we did it was a little too late. Like good players do, they put teams away like us."

Central kept a strong hold on its lead in the third, outscoring the Patriots 16-15.

Young and Statam each had five points in the third to lead the Tigers, and five other players came off the bench to add points.

Sophomore Blake Harris came off the bench to score six points in the second half, while Zyshon Mallory added three and Tevyn Wright-Hunt had two.

In the fourth, Parkway started to chip away at the Tigers' lead, with an 11-6 run.

Parkway sophomore Turner Weiss hit back-to-back 3's, followed by junior Maalik Smith, who added a trey less than a minute later.

With 5:44 to play, junior Carlton Keely added a layup and two free throws to cut Central's lead to 58-45 with 4:41 to go.

But the Patriots' rally ended when Central began a 14-4 run, led by Harris, who came off the bench to score six points in that span for a 68-49 lead with 1:33 to play.

Church said he was impressed with Harris' play and leadership on the court in the final minutes of the game.

"He's just a sophomore, but he's athletic, and he plays extremely hard. And look for Blake to be playing some more," Church said about Harris. "When he gets to understand kind what we do a little better, he's going to be a big part of our program."

The Tigers closed out the game with a 7-5 run, capped off by Mallory, who hit a 3 with 10 seconds remaining.

Young finished the game with 18 points and Chisom had 8.

Junior Blake Ferrell finished with 14 points to lead the Patriots.

Church said Central is improving, but still has a long way to go. He added that he hopes the Tigers will peak towards the end of the season before districts begin.

"I think we're improving every day, and I saw them taking great strides tonight and all throughout the week," Church said. "I think they're starting to see openings, and they're starting to share the ball real well. We need to get a lot better. Hopefully in a couple months at the right time, we can do that."

Parkway South 7 10 15 22 -- 54

Central 22 14 16 23 -- 75

PARKWAY SOUTH (54) -- Blake Ferrel 14, Carlton Keely 10, Turner Weiss 9, Ross Scanlan 7, Caroey Barricklow 5, Connor McArthy 2, Maalik Smith 2, Justin Pettinelli 2, Jack Mullen 2, Tarin Smith 1. FG 19, FT 8-11, F 17 (3-pointers: Weiss 3, Ferrel 2, Keely 2, Barricklow 1. Fouled out: none.)

CENTRAL (75) -- Andre Statam 25, Al Young 18, Kway'Chon Chisom 8, Blake Harris 6, Peyton Montgomery 5, Nikylus Thompson 4, Zyshon Mallory 3, Tevyn Wright-Hunt 2, Chase Hagerty 2, Garrett Johnson 2. FG 27, FT 19-24, F 13 (3-pointers: Statam 1, Mallory 1. Fouled out: none.)