West Florence 3-point barrage buries Carolina Forest

No one wants to see West Florence when it is angry.

Following what head coach Peter Ellis described as a “tough” two days of practice, the focus and intensity of a team with state title aspirations bled through Tuesday night.

Four Knights scored in double figures en route to avenging their January loss to Carolina Forest, 90-63.

“We came in here a bit angry, they gave us our second loss of the season to start region play,” said West Florence sharpshooter Bryson Williams, who had a game-high 23 points in a winning effort. “We hadn’t forgotten that, and we came in focusing on what we had to do.”

While some teams find the Panthers’ version of the matchup zone an annoying sea of hands, Williams and his teammates quickly found a remedy – simply shoot over it.

Williams knocked down four of the team’s seven 3-pointers in the first half, helping West Florence create a 37-20 halftime lead.

“That’s all part of practice and repetition,” Williams said. “Me and my teammates, we get in over 100 shots each day after practice. Performances like tonight are the product of putting in that extra time.”

After the break, Carolina Forest did its part to put a dent in the Knights’ lead by employing a tactic that it sees regularly itself – the half-court trap.

Led by Duane Moss, the Panthers would cut the West Florence advantage to 46-34, prompting Ellis to call time. Ramping up his aggressiveness in going to the basket, the senior scored nine points in the third period.

“They tried to do what we like to do,” the West Florence coach said. “That’s what (Carolina Forest head coach Brian Brunson) wants to do, dictate pace. So we decided to do it back to them and see how they handle it.”

Much to the chagrin of Brunson, the Panthers did not handle the pressure well. West Florence would push the lead back to 19 points by the end of the third quarter, extending it to as many as 26 points in the final period.

“We came out and played with more energy and aggressiveness in the second half,” Brunson said. “But we were forced on defense to do some things we didn’t want to and they exploited that.”

In addition to Williams’ point total, Jalen Cameron added 22 points while Cartier Diarra chipped in 16 of his own.

Moss led Carolina Forest with 25 points, while Damon McDowell had 20 points for the Panthers in a losing effort.

With the loss, the Panthers drop two games off the pace in Region VI-AAAA, and have lost two games in a row as the league schedule pushes into the home stretch.

According to Brunson, the team’s ills are certainly fixable, but are dependent upon his players’ desire for it to happen.

“We have to take care of the ball, have to rebound better and offensively we have to execute better,” he said. “There is nothing that we’ve done wrong that we can’t correct. But we have to look in the mirror, roll up our sleeves and know that we have to do better.”

This story was originally published February 3, 2016 at 12:04 AM with the headline "West Florence 3-point barrage buries Carolina Forest."