Indian Land girls, Catawba Ridge boys win convincingly in region doubleheader split

The Indian Land girls and Catawba Ridge boys both used huge second-half performances to secure region wins against their rivals Friday night.

Indian Land 54, Catawba Ridge 36 (girls)

The Indian Land girls’ basketball team overcame a double-digit deficit in the first half to beat Catawba Ridge, 54-36.

The Warriors trailed as many as 10 points in the second quarter, and trailed the Copperheads 25-18 at halftime, but it was all Indian Land from that point forward as the Warriors went on a 36-11 run in the second half to secure their second win of the season.

Sophomore guard Skylar Young led the Warriors with 21 points, including 14 in the second half.

The win also marked a key milestone for Indian Land (6-12, 2-1): The Warriors surpassed their win total from last year, when they didn’t win a single game in region play.

“I think the first half, (my players) had to get the bugs out,” head coach Kevin King said. “They were a little nervous. They lost last year in a hard-fought game, so they’ve been looking at that. But with the energy and the coaches and ourselves, we got them back in the game, and we took the second, third, and fourth quarter.”

Indian Land suffered an 80-10 loss at home to South Pointe on Tuesday, and with things starting like they did in the first half of Friday night’s game, King needed his team to remain confident in itself.

“(What got us back in the game was) the energy and telling them and putting them in the spot,” King said. “Making sure they understand how to execute and what roles that we’re going to do and also allowing them to know, ‘hey, we’re going to make mistakes but just keep fighting.’ Also by us going a 3-2 (zone defense), it really shut (Catawba Ridge) up, and I think when we showed (our players) in the locker room at halftime, that made a big difference.”

The loss was disappointing for Catawba Ridge (4-15, 2-2) after it never trailed in the first half. But the Copperheads’ lead just continued to slip in the second half.

Morgan Davis led the team with 11 points.

“I think early, we were getting stops and deflections and we were getting out and running in transition, and that’s when we’re at our best,” Catawba Ridge head coach Sheridan Pressley said. “I feel like in the second half, we weren’t able to get out and run as much and it hurt us.”

“Hats off to Indian Land. I think they came out, and their girls played extremely hard. They won the battle tonight that we try to focus on winning every week, and that’s 50/50 balls and rebounding. Then we had some moments where we had some missed free throws and missed layups that we didn’t capitalize, and it hurt us tonight.”

Indian Land will next play at home against Lancaster, while Catawba Ridge will welcome Northwestern to The Arena.

Both games will tip off on Jan. 23 at 6:15 p.m.

Catawba Ridge 64, Indian Land 38 (boys)

The Catawba Ridge boys’ basketball team led wire-to-wire, but used a huge second-half performance to pull away from Indian Land in a 64-38 victory.

The Copperheads led 25-22 at halftime after Indian Land outscored them 12-7 in the second quarter to cut the deficit.

Just like Tuesday night against Lancaster, Catawba Ridge came out of halftime clicking on both ends of the floor, outscoring the Warriors 39-16 in the second half of the game.

Sophomore Lance Barnes led the team with 21 points to go along with five rebounds and four assists, while Zyan Hager scored 16.

“That’s the focus we have,” head coach Brett Childers said. “We’ve talked about those kinds of things in practice. Be a second-half team, be a third-quarter team. We talk about the first five minutes, the last three minutes. The guys really work on that. The guys are in great shape, and they got legs under them and they got good energy. So we talked about that, and that’s kind of our mentality. We got to win these first parts of the quarters, and that’s part of coming out at halftime like that.”

A key component to the way Catawba Ridge (17-2, 4-0) came out in the second half was its defense.

Facing the third-leading scorer in the state in Indian Land point guard Mike Jones (27.1 points per game), Childers said the plan was to slow him down and force passes to go elsewhere.

The Copperheads held Jones to just seven points in the contest and made its presence felt in the passing lanes, intercepting multiple passes en route to easy, transition baskets.

Leading that charge was sophomore Quh’Mareon Webb, who picked up five steals in the game to go along with 13 points (nine in the second half) and seven rebounds.

“He was tremendous,” Childers said. “I was talking to him at halftime, he looked a little not like himself in the first half, and I told him, ‘just be aggressive.’ He went out, and you could see he narrowed his focus, and he was really locked in. And that was great to see because he’s really going to be a key player for us down the stretch against these teams we’re going to be seeing now and in the playoffs.”

After closing its deficit to three heading into halftime, Indian Land (14-5, 2-1) wasn’t able to find a rhythm on offense.

The good looks that the Warriors capitalized on in the first half didn’t fall in the second, and that allowed Catawba Ridge to build all the momentum it needed to come away with the win.

Freshman Sequel Patterson led the team with 14 points, while senior Sincere Rasul scored 11.

“I think the environment got to us,” head coach LJ Johnson said. “We didn’t do a great job of taking care of the ball early on, and then, in the second quarter, we did a good job of battling back, making it competitive at halftime. In the third quarter, turnovers and transition led to the score, just easy baskets for (Catawba Ridge). They were no longer working in half-court situations.”

With Catawba Ridge hitting its stride, Indian Land was unable to do the same, and Johnson said that was a major factor in his team’s loss.

“This is the first time where teams have made runs, and we haven’t been able to make runs back,” Johnson said. “(Catawba Ridge) did a great job defensively of limiting us to one shot and then just not allowing us to get shots. Anytime we tried to play fast, it led to a turnover. They did a great job that way, and we just didn’t capitalize on it.”

Catawba Ridge next play at home against Northwestern, while Indian Land will face Lancaster at home.

Both games tip off on Jan. 23 at 7:45 p.m.