Heritage girls and boys run past Corinth Holders at home

By: Zack Adams

1/26/18

WAKE FOREST -- Yet another tough NAC-6 road test for Corinth Holders. Friday, the Pirates traveled to Wake Forest for a road tilt with Heritage. In this week's Preps Now Top 25 rankings, the Heritage girls come in ranked #2 and the guys at #7. Not only is this year Corinth Holders' first year in 4A, but what makes it even tougher is that almost every girls and boys varsity teams in the conference are locally ranked. Friday was not much easier than the previous three conference games for the lone Johnston County team in the NAC-6, as the scoreboard resulted at the end of 32 minutes for both teams.

GBB: Corinth Holders vs Heritage
#2 Heritage (16-2, 4-0) remains at the top of NAC-6 girls basketball standings following their 69-25 win over Corinth Holders (5-13, 0-4) at home Friday night.

The Lady Huskies only would trail once in the ball game. With 3:50 to play in the opening quarter, Corinth Holders junior Mikayla Thompson popped a three from the wing, in front of the Heritage bench to put the visitors on top, 7-6. Heritage coach Pat Kennedy I guess took offense to Thompson's three ball in front of his bench and fired up his team during the timeout that followed. As soon as the huddle broke, Heritage went right at the Lady Pirates and started forcing turnovers and converting them into easy points left and right.

Next thing you know, Heritage leads 28-8 with 4:50 to play in the opening half. Kennedy's ladies went on a 22-1 run following the three ball from Thompson.

Not only did the #2 Lady Huskies play great team basketball as they dished out 22 assists, but two ladies had stand out games. Juniors Demi Washington and Cydney Johnson each "shut down" their home gym Friday night. Washington led all scorers with 20, 12 of which coming in the second half. Johnson scored the ball and crashed the boards well Friday. She accounted for 10 points and seven rebounds in Heritage's route of Corinth Holders. Sophomore Malia Porrier added 13 and Morehead State commit, Alissa Smalls finished with 10 points and four assists.

The deficit at the conclusion of the contest (44 points) obviously spoke for itself, but a stat you probably do not want to leave the gym with is scoring just as many points as rebounds you hauled in as a team. Corinth Holders scored 25 points in the contest and also hauled in 25 rebounds on the same token.

Junior Mikayla Thompson led Corinth Holders with nine points. Not the junior's best shooting night as she just shot 22% (2/9) from three. Gabby Miller added five points and a team-high, six rebounds grabbed.

MBB: Corinth Holders vs Heritage
New semester, two games, no problem for the Preps Now #7 Heritage Huskies (13-4, 4-0). Tuesday, Heritage downed rival, Wake Forest 69-30 at home. Friday was another 30-point victory for Tilden Brill's men as they picked up their fourth NAC-6 victory over Corinth Holders (4-13, 0-4), 71-41 at home.

Jarren McAllister and Jayden Gardner heard the hype of former local college talent, Dennis Smith Jr. getting a 2018 NBA Slam Dunk Contest invite that they decided to have a contest of their own Friday, but in a game. The two combined for more than a half dozen dunks on the game and each and ever one of them brought the crowd to their feet.

With 6:33 to play in the opening quarter, Jarren McAllister stole a Tanner Smith pass in the open court and threw it down to jump start the contest. Those were the first two points of the Virginia Tech commits' 12 point on the night. McAllister did not only score "the rock". With 3:09 to play in the third, Corinth Holders' forward Tyler Wooten put up a floater and forgot the future ACC commit was lurking. The Huskies' senior pinned Wooten's shot to the backboard and started yet another Heritage fast break. If SportsCenter was in attendance, McAllister would've been getting a lot of "Top 10" looks and the "da-da-da, da-da-da's".

Not to be forgotten, East Carolina commit Jayden Gardner had himself yet again, another double-double. Gardner is closing in on 2,000 points for his career but fell short Friday against Corinth Holders as he finished with 21 points and 11 rebounds. Gardner had 11 points and nine rebounds after the opening eight minutes, as he indeed inserted himself into this contest immediately.

Tre Waller also had himself a game. The sophomore exploded for 16 earlier this year in a four point win over Millbrook but tonight, he filled the stat sheet. Waller finished with seven points, seven assists, and six rebounds. One of "Tre Baller's" six assists kicked off the third as he found Red Dunton (nine points) running the baseline for an alley-oop flush from the 6'5" freshman off a great find from Waller.

Heritage owned the glass. The Huskies out-rebounded the Pirates by 24, 46-22. Gardner grabbed 11 of those and fellow senior, Dow Dunton had nine rebounds of his own.

For Corinth Holders, another disappointing outing but that comes with youth. Senior Warren Ramsey and junior Tyler Wooten each had eight points to lead the visitors. Shooting 16% (3/22) from three like Corinth did will not win you many games on the road, let alone any basketball game in general. One positive from this 30-point defeat would have to be that Corinth Holders score a conference high, 12 points coming out of intermission. The previous three NAC-6 games; ten, three, and seven points coming out of the half.

Both Corinth Holders and Heritage will have road tilts coming up this Tuesday. Corinth Holders will travel to Wake Forest (64-49 Wake Forest on Jan. 9). Heritage will make the trip to former Cap-8 rival, Wakefield on Tuesday. Heritage pounded the Wolverines in Wake Forest back on Jan. 9, 76-54. Will it be the same result this time in Raleigh? Both games are set to tip at 8:00 on Tuesday and of course, varsity girls will be prior to both of those at 6:30.