Rumble on the River: Madison Prep vs. Huntington

<!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Even amid an undefeated start, Madison Prep coach Jeff Jones has his players constantly mindful of areas for potential improvement.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>The Chargers (8-0) entered their final game of their home Rumble on the River tournament before Christmas looking for a faster, more aggressive start than they'd shown in previous contests.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>And the long, athletic group pounced on Huntington (7-5) for an early 10-point lead and cruised away with a dominant second quarter en route to the eventual 71-49 defeat of the 2022 Class 4A semifinalist.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>"We've been starting slow, so I wanted to see if we would come out and get to a fast start against a very good, senior-led team, and we did that," Jones said. "The big thing we've been hanging our hat on this year is defensively we've been holding teams to around 40 points a game. We wanted to come out and try to negate [player_tooltip player_id='1127251' first='Decedric' last='Webb'] inside, a very good player for them... We just kind of wanted to come out and try to slow him down and take control of the game early and make them play more at our pace.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:embed {"url":"https://www.youtube.com/embed/w3ntoCWojhI","type":"rich","providerNameSlug":"embed-handler","responsive":true,"className":"wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio"} --> <figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-embed-handler wp-block-embed-embed-handler wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper"> https://www.youtube.com/embed/w3ntoCWojhI </div></figure> <!-- /wp:embed --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p><strong>[player_tooltip player_id='1218217' first='Josh' last='Smith'] (6'2" | 2024)</strong></p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>and <strong>[player_tooltip player_id='1218216' first='Jayce' last='Depron'] (6'5" | 2024)</strong></p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>The junior guard duo led a balanced scoring effort as the only two players to reach double-figures of the 14 Chargers who scored — and the only two to hit shots from beyond the 3-point line, though their length and athleticism enables them to be effective inside or out. Smith finished with a game-high 12 points, including a first-quarter 3, and Depron drained a pair first-quarter 3's and another in the third quarter en route to an 11-point night.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>"<strong>Dylan Dominque</strong> did a great job of controlling the game tonight, and [player_tooltip player_id='1218217' first='Josh' last='Smith'] and [player_tooltip player_id='1218216' first='Jayce' last='Depron'] have been good for us all year," Jones said. "Our young bigs, <strong>[player_tooltip player_id='1492968' first='Chris' last='Lindo']</strong> and <strong>Jamari Thigpen</strong> and <strong>[player_tooltip player_id='1585179' first='Quentin' last='Dabney']</strong>, they have been coming along really well. So I'm really excited about them. But one of our mottos is strength in numbers, so I was really excited we were able to have a lot of guys come out and contribute because that's what it's gonna take to win it all."</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:embed {"url":"https://www.youtube.com/embed/OUGmV85GbG8","type":"rich","providerNameSlug":"embed-handler","responsive":true,"className":"wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio"} --> <figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-embed-handler wp-block-embed-embed-handler wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper"> https://www.youtube.com/embed/OUGmV85GbG8 </div></figure> <!-- /wp:embed --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p><strong>[player_tooltip player_id='1127251' first='Decedric' last='Webb'] (6-4 | 2023)</strong></p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>The Wichita State target looked the part and came out strong in his own right with eight first-quarter points to help Huntington battle the Chargers closely for the first few minutes before they could neutralize his inside scoring punch and begin pulling away.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p><strong>Kentravis Green (6-1 | 2023)</strong></p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>The strong 3-and-D guard accounted for the Raiders' other first-quarter points with a shot from beyond the arc and paired with forward <strong>[player_tooltip player_id='1579202' first='O'Shamar' last='Hall']</strong> to each score seven second-half points to help bounce back and play Madison Prep more evenly again after the break. </p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p></p> <!-- /wp:paragraph -->