A big region showdown will take place at McDonough High School Friday Night in a Class 4A matchup between Pace Academy and McDonough. Both teams are tied for first place in region 5 with 6-0 records. McDonough comes in at 15-3 and Pace Academy at 12-4.
McDonough is led by a senior group that has made deep runs in the playoffs and finished in the final four the past two seasons and are looking to finish the job this time around. Amon Mcdowelll is their leading scorer averaging 14.5 points per game and first on the team in 3-point field goals made. McDowell is currently a senior but took a lead role his sophomore year and it really helped his game take off to where it is now. McDonough Coach William Thomas talked about his sophomore year and what sets him apart.
“A lot of the time it helps you when you have a parent that coaches, so you hear a lot more and are around the game more. He’s coachable and does what he needs to do. Amon really got a chance to learn on the job his sophomore year,” said Thomas. “We had two seniors on the team that year but they weren’t our main guys. Amon came in as a sophomore and got thrust into that main guy and he had his bumps and bruises but it helped him grow fast because he had to. By the end of the year, we surprised everybody and he ended up making an all-state team. Coming into that year, nobody knew anything about him.”
Pace Academy is also off to another great start and has already played a nationally ranked opponent this season in Mater Dei in a close loss 69-66. Pace Academy coach Sharman White reflected on playing Mater Dei earlier this season.
“Mater Dei is a program that has been synonymous around the country and throughout the years and has a lot of great players and a lot of NBA players play there. It is an honor just to play them. They have a legendary coach who has won over 1,500 games. We were right there. In our opinion, we just had a bad third quarter. We were playing them tick for tack throughout the whole game. We tried to overcome it and we almost did but we just fell a little bit short. We learned a lot from that game and from playing a team of that caliber. For our young guys, it was an eye-opening experience.”
McDonough also has other players that can make you pay defensively. Avante Nichols is having a great season averaging 13.5 points and 5.4 rebounds per game. Da’Avion Thomas is also dangerous in the backcourt he is third on the team in scoring with 12.6 points per game and led McDonough in scoring last season in his first year starting varsity.
What people don’t know about Da’AVion is he was player of the year last year and last year was his first year playing any full-time varsity at the high school level. He transferred to us as a sophomore and was declared ineligible and just played JV,” said Thomas. “He didn’t play varsity at all his sophomore year. To all of a sudden go from you aren’t playing any varsity minutes to player of the year and all-state, that does not happen for a lot of guys. It showed how good and how talented he was. The difference this year is he has become more patient now and he’s been able to play more like a true point guard especially when we need him to. He’s shown that ability when he has to get those assists and has to get everybody involved he can do that. I’ve been proud of his maturity.”
A player to watch for at Pace Academy in this game is Kyle Green. Pace Academy has many scorers who can hurt you and make you pay in Eric Chatfield, Kendall Evans, and Lamar more but Kyle is the leader. Kyle leads Pace Academy in points per game (14.9) assists per game (6.7) and steals per game (3.3)
“He is one of our leaders no doubt. I mean he is a point guard. His feel for the game, IQ, his ability to be able to make teammates better is what makes him a really good player, and he has a chance to do some great things in his basketball career.”
A matchup to watch for is how successful both teams will be in the paint. Despite not having a strong presence in the interior in McDonough, coach Thomas believes in team defense and collective rebounding. Will be interesting to see how successful the guards can be in getting to the rim.
“The reality is there are not a lot of dominant post players in high school basketball, especially not in Class 4A, so it is really not an issue. If we were in 7A, it might be a bigger problem because you have bigger players up there. There are not a lot of high school guys that get on the block, you throw them the ball, and they are just going to go to work and make you pay. There are some. We have gone against some and a lot of the time when you face them you have to double-team them. A lot of the time guards don’t throw the ball in the post a lot anyway, so even if you have a post player that might hurt us inside your guards probably won’t throw them the ball very much.
Pace Academy had an early playoff exit in the second round last year and has aspirations of making it to the state championship game. Coach White talked about how the loss last year has fueled his team going into this season.
“Anytime you fall short of your goal and our goal was to win a state championship last year, it stings but sometimes that is good. I think it served our guys well now. At the time, they probably didn’t feel real good when it happened but they’ve had time to reflect on it,” said White. “We were very young last year and we lost one of our best players but through it, all these guys have found a way to circle the wagons and make sure that they understand what it means to continue to strive to reach our goal which is playing the last game of the year and winning.”
This is the first matchup between these two coaches and they both raved about the other team and what they bring to the table making for an entertaining matchup.
“It’s a really good group. They are talented, athletic, and fast. They do a lot of good things. They are experienced,” said White. “They have been to two final fours in the last two years. They are a really good team and I’m looking forward to matching up with them.”
“I know they will be well coached and are very well disciplined. They run really good sets in the half-court. They don’t take bad shots. They take good shots. If they don’t have a good shot, they won’t shoot it, they will get it to the next guy and let him take a good shot,” said Thomas. “Defensively, they are sound and will mix it up on you. Most good teams you see will hit you from different angles. They are not going to play one defense all game. They are going to run different things, so you have to prepare for different things when you go against them. You have to stop everybody. We have to be ready for it. They may not have that one All-American guy that is unstoppable but they have five guys on the court that can all score and are all threats.”
It doesn’t get much better than a primetime region matchup with teams hopeful of getting to the promised land and is very well coached. It makes for an incredible game on Friday night with two teams who are going to go after one another.
Loading ...
