Charles City beats King William’s pressure to snap losing streak

Charles City's Leo Charity (right) snags an offensive rebound that eventually led to a score over King William's Skylar Stone.

Andre' Jones photo

For a majority of the 2017-18 basketball season, Charles City Panthers head coach VaShaun Otey has been looking for his team to put together a strong four quarters of play on the hardwood. On Monday night, turning the tide of the contest in the third quarter and weathering pressure from King William’s Cavaliers resulted in the Panthers ending their losing skid at seven.

Charles City forward Leo Charity scored 20 points to lead four players in double figures as the hosting Panthers defeated King William 77-62 in the Tidewater District contest.

The Cavaliers had no answer early on for Charity, who used offensive rebounding to find the basket. When King William elected to press the Panthers, the hosts were able to dissect it early, with Charity the beneficiary for easy lay-ins. The sophomore forward would score 12 of the Panthers first 16 points to help the hosts to a 16-15 lead after the first quarter.

The Cavaliers’ press became more effective in the second quarter, forcing the Panthers into unforced errors. However, Charles City’s aggressive placed King William leading scorer Marc Gresham in foul trouble, sending him to the bench with three fouls with 6:53 remaining until the break.

But with the game tied at 20 apiece, other players for the visitors stepped up. A steal by Cameron Cooksey led to him being fouled and sinking two free throws. A subsequent takeaway and score by Cooksey along with a lay-in by Hunter Goodman provided King William with its largest advantage of the night (26-20). The Panthers bounced back, finishing the half on a 7-2 run to find themselves down by a mere point at the break (28-27).

After an exchange of scores to begin the third stanza, Christian Stewart’s three pointer from the corner accounted for the basket that would keep the hosts ahead for good. Along with scores from teammates Justis Crawley and Devonte Johnson, Charles City bolted to a seven-point lead (42-35).

Managing a six-point gap to start the fourth (51-45), Charles City’s success in beating King William’s trapping defense proved beneficiary. Kameron Johnson’s two free throws coupled with Devonte Johnson’s steal and score provided the Panthers its first double digit lead of the night (61-50). After King William trimmed the lead back to seven, another Devonte Johnson close range conversion was followed by six straight points by Crawley to give the Panthers its largest lead of the night with just under three minutes remaining (72-57). Charity’s final field goal would be the knockout blow for the Cavaliers at the two-minute mark.

After the contest, Otey had nothing but praise for his team that now holds a record of 2-12.

“We needed this one and we showed up in the third quarter,” the head coach said, pointing to recent struggles his team has had emerging from the halftime break. “That made a difference and we played consistently.

“We made up for our early mistakes and we played aggressive,” Otey continued. “We haven’t seen much of the press this year and we were rushing. But eventually, we slowed down and picked our spots and it showed as we played well in the fourth quarter.”

Joining Charity in double figures were Crawley and Devonte Johnson, who both finished with 13 apiece, and Kameron Johnson, who scored 10 after returning from injury. Jawuan Bowman scored six, Stewart contributed five, De’Rome Chretien tossed in four, and Steven Trull and Tanner Grubbs rounded out the scoring with three apiece.

Despite being in foul trouble for most of the contest, King William’s Gresham led all scorers in the contest with 23 points.