Northeast’s Petties wasn’t enough for well-balanced Star Spencer team
Star Spencer appeared as if they’d run away with Tuesday night’s game against Northeast with ease, until Darvin Petties exploded in the second quarter, making this an entertaining contest. The Bobcats still pulled out a 72-66 victory over the Vikings.…
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Continue ReadingStar Spencer appeared as if they’d run away with Tuesday night’s game against Northeast with ease, until Darvin Petties exploded in the second quarter, making this an entertaining contest. The Bobcats still pulled out a 72-66 victory over the Vikings.
The Bobcats jumped out to a 38-17 lead early in the second quarter when Northeast’s Petties went on a personal 20-3 run through the final 6 minutes of the half to regain the lead into halftime over Star Spencer. It was resemblant of how Paul George of the Oklahoma City Thunder takes over games at times. Each possession, Petties crossed halfcourt with the full intention of scoring the ball and that’s precisely what transpired. To be specific, all of his shots came off three-pointers and free throws, shooting 4-of-5 from long distance and as the Bobcats fouled him out of desperation, the senior shooting guard knocked down his free throws. He shot a perfect 5–of-5 from the line.
Northeast went into halftime with a 37-33 lead over Star Spencer.
Credit the Bobcats for finding a way to not only get Petties in foul trouble in the third quarter where he committed three of his four fouls but to contain him for the short time they had to on offense. Star Spencer held him scoreless in the third quarter and other than senior forward Malik Pete, who scored six of his 12 points in the third quarter, Northeast couldn’t get much going offensively. Star outscored Northeast 17-10 after three.
A constant nuisance for the Vikings was Jayden Winder, who scored 9 of the Bobcat’s 17 third-quarter points. More importantly, Winder, along with Malik Gilliam applied significant pressure on Northeast defensively, making it a task to get the ball across half court, better yet in the basket.
The fourth quarter got interesting because Northeast wouldn’t disappear. Once again, due to Petties. While playing with four fouls, Petties’ gritty defensive mindset had to be tamed while playing with four fouls, but he still got his points. He scored 14 of the teams 18 points in the fourth quarter, but the lack of production from the rest of the team wasn’t enough to overthrow the home team Bobcats that had four players in double-figures.
For Northeast, Petties finished with 34 points and Pete finished with 12. Other than those two, no one else scored more than seven points and that was Gerald Gurley. All three of those guys are seniors for the Vikings.
As for Star Spencer, Winder was the high scorer with 23 points but had a quality supporting cast. Gilliam finished with 12 points as did Denis Mitchell. Brandon Zeno scored 11 points the hard way, in the paint, primarily against Pete.
The No. 4 ranked Star Spencer Bobcats pulled out the win against the unranked Northeast Vikings but it wasn’t easy.