‘How we roll.’ Northwestern boys, South Pointe girls live up to hype in season-openers
After Northwestern senior Qua Allison finished off a fastbreak layup with 5:01 remaining in the game, South Pointe head coach Melvin Watson dropped his hands by his side and shook his head.
Before that play on Monday night at Northwestern High School in Rock Hill, the Stallions had been chipping away at the Trojans’ lead. And for a moment, South Pointe had a chance.
Northwestern scored the game’s first 12 points and held an 18-point lead at halftime, but out of the break, the Stallions responded well. They outscored Northwestern 17-9 in the third quarter — attacking the basket whenever they could and kicking it out to Omari Bryson, who led the team with nine points, whenever the defense would collapse.
But with just over five minutes left, Allison’s layup made the score 58-44, and it looked as if Watson knew South Pointe’s time to make a run was dwindling.
It turned out that Watson’s look was prescient: Neither team would score until there was 1:45 left in the game, when Mason Grigg, who scored a team-high 22 points, made a rim-grazing finish.
Northwestern (1-0), in its home-opener, would start the season with a 64-49 win over its rival.
“I just always replay the game back in my mind, and it’s already started,” Northwestern head coach John Bramlett said after his team’s win. “We got some things we need to clean up. We gave up 17 points in the third quarter and only scored nine. And we talked about it in the locker room, coming back with a dog mentality, and we didn’t do it. So that’s a little concerning. We’ll fix that.
“But we got a win against our rivals on the first game of the year.”
Northwestern’s starters
Northwestern’s five starters are the team’s only players with varsity basketball experience prior to this season. But considering what they accomplished last year — going 21-6, finishing second in the region — and who the players are, that’s plenty to work with.
There’s Grigg, who is a top-5 senior per the South Carolina Basketball Association. There’s Allison, who scored the game’s first points and finished with 10. There’s senior Ger-Cari Caldwell, who committed to East Carolina to play football. He scored 13, including a ferocious fast-break slam.
There’s junior A.J. Thompson, the point guard and engine of this fast-paced team who scored eight and set up his players for more. And there’s senior Dwight Priest, who fills out the formidable backcourt and who finished with five points.
All of them can run — and pretty much all of them can dunk. Grigg had several true dunks and even more fearless drives that ended with him finishing above the rim.
When asked how many players on his team can dunk, Grigg shed a big smile and said, “That’s just how we roll.”
In the first quarter, there was a stretch as if the teams were trading dunks. Some weren’t even on open fast breaks. South Pointe’s O’Mega Blake caught a one-handed alley-oop off a pure vertical leap.
“We want to score 75 to 80 a game,” Bramlett said. “We’re not very big in the post. We’re guard-oriented, that’s our strength, so we got to play at that pace...
“I got a lot of pieces. I just got to see where they fit.”
South Pointe: ‘That’s coach Butler’
Before the dunk showcase ensued on Monday night, the South Pointe girls team put on a show of its own.
To those familiar with coach Stephanie Butler-Graham’s teams, Monday’s result was nothing new: The Stallions pressed. They wreaked havoc in the Northwestern backcourt. Trinity Adams and Jamia Blake each had five steals on the night, and they each took turns seeing their defense translate into fast-break layups.
Less than three minutes into the first quarter, the defending 4A state champions were up 17-2 and had only allowed two shots. By halftime, the Trojans had only scored nine.
The Stallions (1-0) didn’t play their starters in the fourth quarter and won, 78-25.
And yet, after the game, the South Pointe coach identified several areas of improvement for her undefeated team.
“We just had too many turnovers,” Butler said. “I’m a little disappointed with our lack of execution at times. I think we just forced turnovers but weren’t able to convert…
“If we’re going to take 50 shots a game, we need to be connecting on them. We just got to be a little bit more efficient.”
When asked about her coach’s reaction to the win, Blake responded with a smile that revealed how much she appreciated the coach that expects so much out of her and her team.
“That’s coach Butler,” Blake said. “She always has high standards for us, so whenever we don’t reach our goal, she’s a little disappointed, but she knows we’ll (get) it.”
Blake finished with a team-high 17 points and four assists. Adams finished with eight points and four assists. Kayla Jamerson added 10 points and three rebounds, and Randi Neal finished with 16 points and five steals.
Despite making it to the state championship final last year, and returning several key pieces from last year’s team, Butler isn’t ready to look that far ahead yet.
“We have not won a region championship outright because of point spread and things like that, so that’s a goal for us,” Butler said. “It’s unfortunate that one of our weaker performances came at (last year’s) state championship game. Obviously our goal is to get back to that.
“But we’re (working on) just the little things. We got to be a little bit more efficient.”
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