Conway boys take care of business, earn season sweep of Socastee

With the season dwindling down to a precious few games, every opportunity to hit the floor should be cherished — with the potential of either helping or hindering teams from making the postseason.

Add bragging rights between longtime rivals to the mix, and you have the ingredients for quite an affair.

On Thursday night, however, Conway wasn’t in the mood to be toyed with.

The Tigers moved closer to locking up a playoff berth, claiming a 56-38 victory over Socastee. With the win, the No. 9-ranked team in Class 5A earned a season sweep of the rival Braves.

“We talked about being able to put together a complete 32 minutes,” said Conway boys basketball coach Michael Hopkins. “We’re at the point where we made the turn in our region, and we need to be playing our best basketball … we need to be jelling as we point toward the end of the season and the playoffs. This was a huge win for us, but we can’t be satisfied necessarily with how we did it.”

At times, Conway (14-4, 4-3 Region VI-5A) seemed primed to run Socastee out of “The Brave Wave” — the nickname given to the Socastee High School gymnasium. The Tigers led by 10 at halftime, and at one point held a 15-point advantage a few minutes into the second half.

Socastee had no intentions of going away, though, going on an 8-0 run in the third to cut the Conway lead to 35-27. But as with any good team, it has an answer … and the Tigers did, using a 6-0 run to end the period and extend its advantage back to double digits.

“Every time we thought we had a chance to further cut into their lead, we either turned the ball over or the ball dribbled out,” said Socastee boys basketball coach Derrick Hilton. “We shot 29 percent tonight from the field, you have to credit Conway with that and their effort on the defensive end. They made it tough for us to make inside baskets, but we need to do a better job taking care of the basketball and being strong in the paint.”

The Braves (10-9, 2-5 Region VI-5A) also did themselves no favors at the free throw line, shooting less than 50 percent from the charity stripe.

A player who was particularly effective in the paint Thursday was Conway’s Jaylen Moody. Coming off a solid performance Monday against West Florence, he followed it up with a more well-rounded one at Socastee, scoring 15 points and hauling in five rebounds. The junior forward also had seven blocks and two steals in a winning effort.

“I was just trying to help my team in whatever way I could — rebounding, scoring, defense — I just wanted to bring that energy to get a win tonight,” he said. “It was very important to come out with a win (Thursday night). We had to win three of our remaining games to make the playoffs (coming into the game with Socastee), so we had to put our best foot forward.”

In addition to Moody, Jimmy Nichols also finished in double figures with 12 points before fouling out in the fourth period.

Nichols’ disqualification proved to be a moment of contention for the Conway bench and supporters in the stands, believing the Tigers’ standout was assessed one more foul in the scorebook than he should have. While not necessarily wanting to delve too far into the matter, Hopkins did laugh about it somewhat after the game.

“You saw it, you saw it,” he said. “Sometimes you have to battle a little adversity, but it feels good to put it behind you … especially when you win.”

Nijaye Foster led the way for Socastee, scoring 11 points. South Carolina signee Jason Cudd finished with 10 points and 14 rebounds, while Kendrell Generette also had 10 in a losing effort.

This story was originally published January 26, 2017 at 10:24 PM with the headline "Conway boys take care of business, earn season sweep of Socastee."