New Kent Charles City Chronicle

News for New Kent County and Charles City County, Virginia | March 29, 2024

Trojans overcome first half shooting woes, top Bruton

By Alan Chamberlain | January 21, 2010 3:36 pm

After being forced to overtime to defeat Bruton’s Panthers on the road a week earlier, New Kent’s host Trojans looked to be clicking on all cylinders to take out the Panthers in their Bay Rivers District basketball rematch. They weren’t.

The unbeaten and top-ranked Trojans suffered through a 28 percent first half shooting performance, including a miserable 19 percent from the floor in the second quarter alone. At the free throw stripe, they missed eight of 12. All pointed potentially to a first loss, but that’s where the defense stepped in.

Despite shooting woes, the Trojans kept a lid on Bruton’s first half point production and owned a 23-19 lead at intermission. Defensive prowess coupled with a rejuvenated offense in the second half translated into a 60-44 Jan. 13 victory, keeping New Kent’s record unblemished at 10-0 in the district and 12-0 overall.

“That’s the worst we’ve shot all year,” Trojan coach Ed Allen said after learning the first half statistics. “[Bruton] did a good job on defense by jamming us and pushing us where we didn’t want t go.

“But our defense was much better and that’s why we won,” he said. “We made adjustments to handle their defense and then we went to that 1-2-2 zone. They didn’t score much against that.”

While New Kent shot poorly from the floor in the opening quarter, Bruton’s accuracy proved to be much worse. The Panthers sank only two of 12 shots (17 percent) as New Kent built a 16-4 advantage.

But the Panthers connected on five of seven shots after the second quarter got under way. A 10-1 run closed the gap to 17-14 less than three minutes into the period.

“We didn’t execute like we normally do,” Allen said. “We were a step slow and our timing was totally off. We had three things that we knew could be problems for us — free throw shooting, rebounding, and running our offense — and we didn’t do two of the three.”

Twice Bruton closed within one in the third quarter, but baskets by E.J. Gray and Everett Christian held off the Panthers on the respective occasions. New Kent led 35-33 when Gray sank a pair of free throws at the 1:56 mark and Steven Allen followed with a steal and lay-in to give the hosts breathing room.

Gray, starting in place of the injured Paul Kearney, pumped in 10 points, including eight in the third quarter.

“E.J. came in and did a good job for us on offense,” his coach said.

Kaleb Lamb buried a three-pointer from the corner to open the final quarter and extend New Kent’s lead to 44-36. Bruton answered with Josh Lofton’s basket in the lane, but the Trojans poured in the next 10 points to put the game away.

Allen led all scorers with 19 points. Lamb finished with 12 followed by Christian’s nine, four each from Justin Williams and Adam Otey, and two from Josh Brown. Lofton’s 11 points led Bruton.

“It wasn’t pretty,” coach Allen said, “but it was a win against a good team.”