Boys’ offense disappears in losses

Published 9:34 am Thursday, January 30, 2020

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It was the worst week of what had been an astonishing season.

The Davie varsity boys basketball team was feeling good after back-to-back Central Piedmont Conference wins, including an overtime triumph over Glenn. Davie was 11-4 overall and 2-1 in the CPC.

But the War Eagles produced a pair of clunkers last week. In a road nonconference game on Jan. 22, they lost 57-40 to Lexington. The next night in a CPC road game, they lost 53-37 to East Forsyth.

Defensively, the War Eagles played the way coach Mike Absher wanted them to. On the flip side, everything reeked offensively.

“Going into both of those games, if you would have said we were going to hold those teams to those point totals, I would have said we’ve got a good chance to win,” Absher said. “Man, we just hit a real cold spell offensively.”

Now Davie’s season is at a crossroads. If you’re not as good as your best work, you’re never as bad as your worst. There’s no reason it can’t right itself this week against Reagan and Reynolds. The Demons beat Davie the first time around, but Glenn knocked off Reynolds and Davie, you’ll remember, rallied past Glenn in OT.

“We’re still right in the middle of everything,” he said. “We’ve got a lot of goals and we can still accomplish them. We’ve got to get back to work. We’ve got to score more points.”

Lexington 57, Davie 40

Five days after overriding Glenn’s 11-point, second-half lead, Davie crashed to Earth against the top team in the Central Carolina 2-A Conference.

The Yellow Jackets, who are 13-3 overall with an eight-game winning streak, never let Davie up for air. It was 17-5 after the first quarter, 33-21 at halftime and 50-33 after the third.

Brooks Johnson did his part with 17 points, hitting three of Davie’s four 3-pointers. But there were no other positives as Davie finished with its lowest point total in 125 games, or five years. (Reagan beat Davie 61-36 in 2014-15.)

Luke Williams, James Reid and Iverson King had four each. Jaydin Spillman, Alex Summers and Za’Haree Maddox had three and Zach Smith two.

E. Forsyth 53, Davie 37

Although the tale of this team will not be written until sometime in February, this was a deflating loss. Davie could have pushed itself into a tie for first against a team that went 2-11 in nonconference play. Instead, the War Eagles dropped to fourth, one game behind co-leaders Reynolds, East and Glenn.

Davie’s defense was solid again, but things only got worse offensively. East (5-12 overall), which lost by 16 to Glenn and needed double overtime to beat last-place Reagan (5-11, 0-3), led 12-4 after the first and 23-6 at halftime. The first half was reminiscent of the West Forsyth game. In that one, Davie trailed 16-8 at intermission, but saved face by outscoring the Titans 39-20 in the second half.

There was no such rally this time. Davie (11-6, 2-2 CPC) trailed by 15 after the third, finished with another scoring low and suffered back-to-back losses for the first time since the 2017-18 season.

Before last week, the War Eagles were averaging 58.5 points. They managed 77 in 64 minutes against Lexington/E. Forsyth. They only attempted four free throws, all coming in the inconsequential fourth quarter.

“In the first half, we missed six layups and 11 open jump shots,” Absher said. “It wasn’t a lot about execution. We had pretty good looks. We just weren’t making them. Whereas in the Lexington game, I didn’t think we executed very well.”

Davie’s points came from Johnson (10), Smith (six), Maddox (six), Reid (four), Matt James (four), Williams (three), Zymere Hudson (two) and King (two).