Sharing Flyers Ease By Titans for Fourth Win in a Row

The No. 5 ranked Sandhills Community College basketball team improved to 4-0 on Wednesday with a 116-88 victory over Guilford Tech at The Hangar.

After breaking an early 4-4 tie on a three by freshman Jamori McDougald, the Flyers never trailed, building their lead to as many as 28 points in the second half.

Sophomore guard LeNijel Robinson was 9-for-11 from the field, with three treys, and was also credited with eight rebounds and five of his team's season-high 34 assists. Other double-figure scorers for the winners were McDougald with 15 points and Joey McMullin with 14.  Non-starters scored 64 points.  The Titans' Bryant Wall finished with 26 points and 13 rebounds.

As his team looks ahead toward its first road game of the season at Wake Tech at 4 p.m. on Saturday, Flyers Coach Mike Apple wasn't entirely satisfied with a performance that included, allowing 22 offensive rebounds and too many baskets in the paint.  Led by Wall, the Titans scored 20 second chance points in the game to 13 for the home team.

"We were doing a really good job offensively, moving the ball," the coach said. "We have to get better defensively and rebounding the basketball or some of the bigger teams are going to really feast on us.

"The sharing of the ball was a whole lot better than the defense and rebounding, that's for sure."

The Flyers reached their first double-digit lead at 18-7 on a jumper in transition by Robinson. The Titans closed the gap to five at the six minute mark of the half, but later a put-back by Jaquan Thurman gave the home team a 51-42 advantage at the intermission.

Leading by five early in the second half, Jordan Coleman scored in transition and then fed Joey McMullin for a three. That ignited a rally that built the lead to 81-60 on a three by Sam Stolz with 10 minutes remaining in the game. The Flyers went over the century mark on McDougald's third trey with 4:25 remaining.

The Flyers made 56.6 percent of their shots from the field and are averaging 57.6 per cent for the young season.

"Bad shooting is contagious and so is good shooting," Apple said. "We're shooting the ball pretty well right now and I just hope it continues."

Led by Alon Hanani with six, and Coleman and Robinson with five, 11 different Flyers contributed assists, including three by McDougald.

"Jamori is doing a good job of taking over for Chris Hunter (hand injury) at point guard and Jordan has really taken it upon himself to be a facilitator," the coach said. 

"All of our guys are able to facilitate. You don't necessarily have to be a point guard to move the basketball and make good passes. When we get the ball to our forwards they generally make pretty good passes."

A product of Chester High School (SC), Coleman, a red-shirt sophomore, scored eight points and chipped in with five assists. Playing a much larger role this season, he has started all four games, averaging a team-leading 4.8 assists.

"I just look for my open teammates and once I get them the ball we start scoring more," he said. "As far as this year, I've tried to be more of a leader for the young guys. We had a lot of positives tonight, sharing the ball, but defensively we have to get better."

Guilford Tech – Wall 11 3-8 26, Key 10 0-1 20, Moses 3 4-4 10, Jenkins 5 1-2 13, Underhill 2 0-0 4, Lawson 0 0-2 0, Qureshi 1 6-6 9, Davis 1 4-6 6, Miller 0 0-0 0 Totals 33 18-29 88. Sandhills – McDougald 6 0-0 15, Coleman 4 0-0 8, Thurman 3 1-1 7, McMullin 6 1-1 14, Quiller 3 2-2 8, Kinch 1 0-0 3, Wooldridge 3 0-0 6, Hanani 1 0-0 2, Robinson 9 4-5 25, Stoltz 3 0-0 9, Gittens 1 3-4 5, Williams 1 0-0 2, Sledge 4 0-0 8, Leslie 2 0-0 4 Totals 47 11-13 116. Three-point goals: GTC 4 (Jenkins 2, Wall, Qureshi; SCC 11 (McDougald 3, Robinson 3, Stoltz 3, Kinch, McMullin). 

C. Bergmann