Flyers Roll Over Warriors for Third Straight Win

The seventh-ranked Sandhills Community College Flyers picked up a dominant 107-74 victory over the Mt. Zion Post Grad Warriors on Tuesday night, bouncing back after a week of tough matchups. The Flyers came out strong and never looked back, controlling the game from start to finish.

"I think the best thing that happened tonight was that we got to play some guys that hadn't played a whole lot of minutes lately—get seven or eight minutes—which was good because they get a chance to play, get a chance to show us what they can do," Flyers head coach Mike Apple said. "The thing that we wanted to do was play better defense and play better offense as far as swinging the ball, moving the ball. I thought we made some good passes."

The game started off close as the Flyers worked to gauge their opponents, trading baskets early. However, Sandhills quickly gained control, jumping ahead 16-10. A 15-2 scoring run extended their lead to 31-18, and they continued to push, stretching it to 43-28 with less than five minutes left in the first half.

Mt. Zion fought back, chipping away at the deficit and cutting the Flyers' lead to 49-37, but Sandhills responded with a strong finish to take a 53-39 advantage into the break.

The second half belonged entirely to the Flyers, who carried their first-half momentum forward with scoring bursts that put the game out of reach. They extended their lead to 72-52 before cruising to the final 107-74 victory.

"Teams like this, they're not conference teams. The hope is that you can get a lot of players in there so we know different combinations of players," Apple said. "We want to keep our foot on the gas. I thought we missed too many layups. We shot 53% from the floor for the game, and I counted at least seven or eight missed layups—if we'd made those, we'd be shooting in the sixties. Guys understand now that whatever you do in practice, you have to carry into games. If you don't put forth that effort in practice, it doesn't happen in games."

Antoine Piper led the Flyers with 20 points, followed by Damian Robinson with 16. Mylon Campbell and Kevin Gentery each contributed 14 points.

"We just need to play harder. We're not really comfortable with that win—we just gotta play harder and prepare for the next game," Gentery said. "Like the coach said, it's how you do anything is how you do everything. We just keep telling each other to play defense hard and take the screen, so we've got to keep up the intensity."

The Flyers will be back in action on Thursday when they welcome Franklin Prep to The Hangar for a non-conference matchup. Tip-off is set for 7 p.m.

Z. Ciboth