By Mark Robinson
The Greenbrier East boys’ basketball team defeated Sherman High School Tuesday night by a score of 90-33. Early in the contest the Spartans moved out to a commanding lead, and were never in doubt about the outcome.
Seth Brown led all scorers with 22 points, Jasiah Rawls added 15, and Karim Ezzedine put in 12. Ezzedine pulled down 6 rebounds, and Jasiah Rawls added 5. Seth Brown contributed 5 assists and 9 steals.
As the Spartans took a larger and larger lead, the starters spent more time on the bench, and the second and third string players got more time on the floor. Every player on the team played major time, with everyone spending at least 10 minutes on the court, except one player, who got six minutes.
While the point total heavily favored the Spartans, the rebounding was the one sore spot, with Sherman gathering 65 rebounds total to the Spartans’ 42. Bailey Kirk of the Sherman Tide led all rebounders with 12.
Head Coach Jim Justice commented after the game, “Well, I was pleased with our defense. We were trying to play a help side man in our practices. We switched to a zone and a diamond press. We’re getting better. Overall, we’re dad gum good in my book … We’re working really hard on a man defense. In which if I’m guarding you here, and you get by me, and somebody else is over there, we have helpstanding on the mid-line, right in the lane. I felt that with Seth, Jasiah, Madison, Evan … we’re too slow to play that defense effectively. So we switched up to a 2-3 zone, and pressing all the time. And that keeps the game sped up. If we go to a zone, it slows the game down … The Diamond defense is a diamond press. We’ve got Karim up on the ball. We’ve got two guys here who are really fast in Seth and Caleb, and we’re trapping all the time in the backcourt.”
Karim Ezzedine, #55: “I felt pretty good about the game. It wasn’t a great competition. But it was good to execute our stuff and trying to learn how to play together. It was our first home game, trying to get used to the crowd. We just played hard the first half, tried to attack that team, played as hard as we can, tried to get as many points as we could. Just trying to win the game.”
Madison Erskine #12: “I thought we came out strong; we had a good first game. We were excited to come out finally. I think we’re going to have a good season. We’re going to keep working on our offensive plays, getting them down pat. I thought our defense looked good tonight. We had a lot of steals. I like it.”
Caleb Ward, #10: “I didn’t play that much because of the score. We looked solid. I’m looking forward to Capital next week. I know Sherman out rebounded us. That can’t happen. They were pretty small. Coach will work with us on that. We’ll go through some drills.”
Jasiah Rawls, #1: “It was a good game. We played good on defense. We gota lot of steals, and we ran the floor well. We didn’t rebound too well. We got a lot of steals and put up a lot of easy points … We didn’t really change up anything from the first half to the second half. Coach wanted us to rebound more because they were out rebounding us in the first half. So he wanted us to rebound more in the second half.”
Noah Dye, #31: “We played better than I thought we would, judging by our scrimmages. I was happy with it. Coach told us to get on the boards more, because we got out rebounded in the first half. We hit the boards harder in the second half … For Capital, we’re going to try to do a lot of the same. We’re going to try to hit our shots, and make it to the foul line. We definitely have to rebound better. That’s one thing Capital did well last year in regionals. So we have to rebound better.”
Evan Canterbury, #45: “We played really good. We still have to become better as a team. We have to rebound better. There are a few things to work on … For Capital, we need to work on rebounding. They’re going to come out hungry, because we beat them last year in the regionals. I think we’ll have to work out more this week. I think we’ll be alright against them.”
Sherman High School is named for General William Tecumseh Sherman, a Union commander in the Civil War.
Greenbrier East’s next game is an away game against Capital High School in Charleston, on Monday, Dec. 14.
