“It doesn’t matter if it is a close game or a blowout. We have to play good basketball.”
Tuesday night, Coach Jared St. Charles’ Chapman Panthers came into the brand new Woodruff High School Gymnasium doing just that – playing good basketball at the right time. The Panthers were in the midst of a 4 game win streak in which they defeated Greer Middle College 71-29, MVP in a 48-47 rockfight, Union County 65-59 in overtime, and Chester 76-37. To sum it all up – a few blowouts, but a lot of close wins in games against “like” teams in big region games. Consistency has been the Panthers’ last few weeks in a nutshell.
On the other hand, Woodruff, while not having put together a longer win streak than three, has still been offensively consistent. The Wolverines came into the night at .500 (7-7 overall, 2-1 in region play) and on a 2-game losing skid. But, they were averaging just over 57 points per game while giving up almost the same. In short, they are a team that struggles to score the basketball at times, but they defend fairly well, making them a tough team to put away.
In Tuesday night’s contest, neither side came out strong offensively. Chapman took the opening tip and proceeded to go 0 for their first 5 from the field, missing on a lot of attempts from three point range. For as bad a start as the Panthers got off to, it was even worse for the Wolverines. Woodruff also missed on a fair amount of looks from beyond the arch, but when they got to the rim, shots simply would not fall, and Chapman was pulling down a lot of those misses only to come up empty on the other end.
The Panthers were eventually able to take advantage of the cold start by the Wolverines and build a double digit lead over the first nearly 5 minutes of the game thanks to threes from their duo of shooting guards – junior Grayden Humphries and senior Hawk Smith. But, Woodruff was finally able to get the lid off the hoop at the 3:21 mark on a triple from senior guard Zac Ramey, sparking a 7-0 run to close out the frame and make for a 12-7 Panthers lead.
The 2nd quarter saw both offenses finally kick into gear. Wolverine senior guard Dre Jenkins got hot with 10 points in the frame and he stayed on fire the rest of the way. However, he got little support, at least in the first half. Senior center/forward Grayson Patterson scored 5 in the frame, but only one other matched that mark in the opening half – senior guard Zac Ramey. On the other end of the floor, Humphries also caught fire, draining three consecutive treys, complimented by a combined 8 points from Smith, sophomore point guard Cade St Charles, and senior forward JT Rollins.
At the half, in spite of the numbers, Woodruff’s season up to this point in a nutshell rang true – they were hanging around, being pesky, and only trailed 29-24. But, after a third quarter that was nearly the mirror of the first: 5 points from Humphries and St Charles in a frame where Chapman tallied just 13 while Jenkins tallied 4 of Woodruff’s 11, things stayed tight over the final 8 minutes. The Wolverines pulled to within one possession midway through, but despite Jenkins’ 6 points and Patterson’s 7, five different Chapman players made contributions to salt the game away. Humphries, St Charles, and senior small forward Colby Moon all hit a three. Senior power forward Khamari Turner found his way back into the scoring column with 4 in the final period to bring his total to 8 on the night and Hawk Smith ended the night with 9 points, two of which came in the 4th quarter.
On the Wolverines’ side, Jenkins scored 20 and was complimented by Patterson with 12 and Ramey with 8. However, in the end the Panthers slowed the tempo down the stretch, helping keep Woodruff off the scoreboard and behind Humphries’ team-high 24 points as well as Cade St Charles’ 12, secured a 58-48 victory to mark their fifth straight (4th in region) and up their record to 16-3 (4-0 in 3-3A) while Woodruff fell to 7-8 (2-2).
“Woodruff gave us a good game tonight”, said coach St Charles after the win. “We found a way at the end to make some plays, took the air out of the ball, and got some big baskets when we needed to. Grayden came through big for us tonight. He had a rough go against Union last week and scored just 5 that night. Tonight, he was ready to come out swinging and have a big game. I am glad to see the ball going through the hoop for him and he had a really good game tonight.”
Grayden and Chapman have a great chance to keep the momentum going this Friday night as they return home to take on a Broome team that has been sliding, having snapped an 8-game losing streak last Friday with a victory over Greer Middle College before falling to MVP 48-35 Tuesday night. Woodruff will look to get back on track, wrapping up the week with a trip to Union County, who just defeated GMC 59-44.
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