In front of a raucous home crowd that packed the gym to capacity, the Centennial boys basketball team kept Milton’s super sophomores at bay to defeat its North Fulton rival, 72-64.
Under the direction of point guard Devonta White, the poise and leadership of N.C. State commit Lorenzo Brown, and the scoring of Kamren Belin and Ryan Fleming, Centennial cruised to victory in the second half. The Knights opened up the lead to as much as 18 points in the third quarter, and enjoyed a double-digit cushion for most of the game.
Belin led the Knights with 16 points, while Fleming added 14. Brown scored just 11 points, but dictated the pace of the game with ball-handling, passing and defense.
“We went against a top-5 team in the state tonight and [Brown] scores 11 points,” said Centennial head coach Allen Whitehart. “But he does everything else that you need to be a good basketball team. He’s one of those players that can beat you from anywhere, and he doesn’t have to score to beat you. I think that showed tonight.”
“I’m not a selfish player like a lot of other big players,” said Brown. “I can score when my team needs me.”
In addition to their balanced scoring attack, swarming defense was a key to the Knights’ success. Two of Milton’s star 10th graders, Shannon Scott and Dai Jon Parker, were kept under wraps for most of the game. Julian Royal, the other member of Milton’s triumvirate of talented sophomores, kept the Eagles within striking distance with 16 points in the contest.
“We keyed on [their sophomores] for most of the game and just tried to limit what they did,” said Whitehart. “They’re talented. They’ve got a bunch of very talented sophomores, starting with Scott, Royal and Parker.”
Centennial moved to 10-1 on the season with the win, and 4-0 in the ultra-competitive Region 6-AAAAA to keep its place atop the B subregion. With the recent emergence of Milton (currently ranked eighth in our Score Atlanta all-class Power 15 poll), Walton (fifth) and Lassiter to go along with state powers Centennial (third), Wheeler (ninth) and Campbell, Region 6 may have a claim to being the toughest league in the state.
“It’s a brutal run. Any night that you get a good win you’re definitely happy, because you’re not guaranteed anything in a region this tough,” Whitehart said. “It could be just the opposite at their place next time, and I think our kids and their kids realize that.”
Is Region 6 in fact Georgia’s toughest region?
“Hands down,” says Whitehart. “You’ve got six teams that could be top 10 in (Class) 5A.”
The upstart Eagles (9-2, 3-1) have enjoyed unprecedented success so far this year under legendary coach David Boyd, who recently earned the 500th win of his career with a 74-70 victory over Walton on Tuesday. Though young, the Eagles are building on a sixth-place finish in the region last season.
“It’s good to have more competition like that,” Brown said of his opponent. “But they’re real young. Hopefully in the future they’ll get a lot better.”
The Eagles’ youth certainly showed at the outset of Friday night’s game, as Centennial jumped out to an 8-0 lead. Fleming provided the early scoring spark for the Knights with eight points in the opening quarter, and tenacious defense forced Milton to take contested outside jumpers.
Despite the efforts of Royal, who accounted for much of the Eagles’ offense in the first half, Centennial held a 38-22 halftime lead. With 1:04 left in the half, Brown made a sensational play in which he grabbed a rebound off a Milton miss, raced the length of the court and slithered around several tardy Milton defenders for a high-flying layup to cap the Knights’ first-half scoring. Brown played the entire game.
Both teams will continue their difficult schedules over the next week and a half. Centennial will meet Walton, Class A power Whitefield Academy and Class 4A No. 1 Miller Grove (on Jan. 19 at the Tribute to a King Holiday Hardwood Classic at Centennial) over that span; Milton must face Lassiter, Class A powerhouse Southwest Atlanta Christian, Dacula and Class 3A No. 1 Columbia (also at Tribute to a King).
GAME NOTES
This is the first week that Centennial has been without 6-foot-5 power forward Euclid Cummings, who left the basketball team in order to concentrate on academics and preparation for his football career at Georgia Tech. A defensive end on the football team, Cummings had been a member of the hoops team before even suiting up for the Knights on the gridiron. Though his departure hurts depth in an already thin frontcourt, Whitehart says it was “definitely the right move for him and his family.”
Ewalt can be reached at aewalt@scoreatl.com.
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