BOILING SPRINGS, SC - Last Friday both Boiling Springs teams won games against their district rivals and one week later the Bulldogs completed the series sweep by taking both games at home as well on Friday night.
In the boys' game the Bulldogs used a pressure defense to capture a 57-28 victory over the visiting Eagles that saw them come away with 19 steals and five blocked shots. "We've been preaching to our kids to play with a lot of energy from the start of the game to the final second of the game," said Boiling Springs head coach Curtis Nash. "We stress in the locker room and in practices to play defense with a lot of tenacity and making play on offense. I'm really proud of them playing the game like we've been wanting them to play it completely tonight." In the first quarter the Bulldogs took the first lead of the game off a layup by senior guard Austin Faile, but Chesnee battled back to take a 7-5 lead midway through the quarter. Boiling Springs used their defense to finish the quarter on a 7-0 run and take a 12-7 lead at the end of the quarter. Spencer Eison continued the Boiling Springs strong defensive effort to start the second quarter as he stole a Chesnee pass before finishing with a layup to put their lead at 14-7. The Bulldogs extended their halftime lead by hitting some key three-pointers as Tre Locklear, Ketrone Adams, and London Hogan combined to hit four three-pointers to account for twelve of the Bulldogs eighteen points in the quarter. The second half saw the Bulldogs defense have its most impressive performance as they outscored Chesnee 27-7 over the final two quarters of play. Boiling Springs saw 10 of the 15 players on their roster score on Friday night as the Bulldogs got contributions from their entire roster. One of the big plays in the second half came midway through the third quarter when the Bulldogs Julius Camp Jr stole a pass before finishing with a slam dunk amongst a 12-3 run. "It's extremely important for us to get points like that from our whole bench tonight as we preach to them that iron sharpens iron as we're making each other better every day in practice," said Nash. "We know our bench is pretty deep which gives us a pretty good rotation that we feel comfortable with but like we tell the guys we stress there is no let off from one group to another as we want both groups to respond the same way." Austin Faile led the Bulldogs with 11 points to go along with four steals and a rebound. Bulldogs post players Dominique Johnson, Payton Browning, and Camp combined for five blocked shots while Tre Locklear led the team in steals with five of his own. Nash said the play of both Faile and his post players have been key in their early season success. "Austin has been a senior leader for us with his play this season and he loves this game," said Nash. "We lack some size in the post but those guys in the paint have a lot of heart and play hard. In practice when we practice our post play, we really stress to them about being physical." KJ Valentine led the way for Chesnee with eight points, nine rebounds, and two steals as the Eagles were without leading scorer Brady Poole on Friday night due to injury. In the girls' game the Bulldogs got a big game from sophomore Sarah Ezell to grab a 36-28 victory over the visiting Eagles. "It's a good win but we put ourselves in a bind there late as I told the girls we were getting too comfortable and were only a shot or two from letting them back into the game," said Boiling Springs head coach Dwayne Lytle. "Sarah can turn on her game and take over, which she was doing early on, but there late she got into some foul trouble, so I told her she had to be less aggressive, which hurt us some towards the end of the game." Ansley King got the first score of the game for the Bulldogs as she hit a three-pointer from the left side to take an early lead but soon Ezell took over as she scored eight of the Bulldogs remaining 13 points in the quarter to take a 15-9 lead at the end of the first quarter. The Eagles fought back in the quarter behind a strong first quarter from Brie Smith who scored five of Chesnee's nine points in the quarter. In the second quarter the Bulldogs started off the quarter on a 4-0 run to extend their lead to ten points at 19-9 which started with a layup by King to once again start the Bulldogs scoring. With the Bulldogs leading by ten points, the Eagles Brie Smith cut the lead to eight points as she made a layup as time expired to put the Boiling Springs lead at 24-16 as the teams went to halftime. The eight-point lead was the barrier that seemed to be the wall for the Eagles the rest of the game as they trailed 31-23 at the end of the third quarter and 36-28 when the final buzzer sounded. Sarah Ezell led the Bulldogs in scoring with 16 points to go along with seven rebounds, three steals, and a block while Ansley King joined Ezell in double figures scoring as she finished the game with 12 points while adding six rebounds. Brie Smith led Chesnee in scoring with 11 points to go along with five rebounds while Pearl Holloway led the team in rebounds with 11 rebounds to go along with six points. Boiling Springs will be back in action on Tuesday when they host Spartanburg while Chesnee will return to action on Tuesday when they travel to Chapman for a rematch of Thursday night. Comments are closed.
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