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By Brian Pitts

Enterprise Record

Davie JV boys basketball coach Tracey Arnold liked the result from the season opener, 75-34 over visiting South Iredell on Nov. 22.

But that was about it.

The 41-point margin represented the JV’s largest victory in 18 years, but it wasn’t earth-shattering stuff to the longtime coach. The War Eagles were not in sync offensively. Their shortcomings were just masked by the fact they had too much juice for an opponent with meager talent.

“We didn’t play good,” Arnold said. “Our halfcourt trap was good and that’s where we generated our points. We were just bad in the halfcourt. Our ball movement was bad. They put a lot of pressure on our guards and we couldn’t get into our sets. We had to screen-and-roll and freelance. We were just more talented.”

Six different guys scored as Davie jumped to an 18-5 lead in the first quarter. The War Eagles barely increased the margin in the second, but the floodgates opened in the third, when Davie put up 30 points. Ethan Driver had eight in the quarter and seven different guys had points as Davie busted it wide open at 63-26.

Ten players cracked the scoring column, led by Driver’s 15, Cameron Owens’ 14 and Connor Hood’s 12. The other scorers were Isaac Swisher (eight), Adam Brown (seven), Thomas Essic (six), Elliott Erlandsson (five), George Sakai (three), Jackson Sulecki (three) and David Patton (two).

Davie knocked down nine 3-pointers, including two each by Owens and Hood.

Even though it was the largest win since an 82-37 wipeout of Mooresville in 2004-05, Arnold kept things in perspective.

“We’ve still got a ways to go,” he said. “But it’s early in the season and we’d only had the football players for a week. So they’re still trying to get their legs and understand the plays.”