Hemingway downs Carvers Bay to take control of Region VIII-A
It was just last Saturday when Carvers Bay went on the road and upended Hemingway, its chief rival and at the time the top-ranked team in Class A in the state.
The victory put the Bears in position to win a Region VIII-A title and set themselves up for a playoff run.
Those goals were dependent upon the Bears (13-8) holding serve against Hemingway at home Friday, but the Tigers (16-5) again looked like one of the top teams in Class A while earning a 59-48 win to retake control of the region.
Hemingway improved to 7-1 in VIII-A while Carvers Bay fell into a tie with Latta for second place at 6-2 with two games remaining in the regular season – Tuesday at Latta and Thursday at Lake View.
“We have a lot of growing up to do, so we’ll see how we respond to this,” Carvers Bay coach Jeff Mezzatesta said. “I don’t think we executed. I don’t think we stepped up. I feel we kept looking for somebody to step up.”
Carvers Bay was ranked sixth and Hemingway fifth in Class A entering Friday’s game.
Usually our defense sparks us, and it did there a couple of different times, especially there at the end of the second quarter going into halftime. But we just did not come out with that same type of intensity in the second half, and that hurt a lot.
Carvers Bay coach Jeff Mezzatesta
Hemingway raced out to a 19-6 lead. “We started so cold. We were under the bucket and missing 2-foot shots. I was worried about that. I was hoping we didn’t press ourselves, and we did. But we fought back.”
The Bears pulled within three points in the second quarter and trailed by five at halftime, but Hemingway regained command in the third quarter and its lead remained double digits for most of the second half.
“Usually our defense sparks us, and it did there a couple of different times, especially there at the end of the second quarter going into halftime,” Mezzatesta said. “But we just did not come out with that same type of intensity in the second half, and that hurt a lot.”
Arkel Williams scored 14 points to pace Carvers Bay, while Jeremiah Greene contributed nine and Marquiese Goss eight points, respectively. Jordan Porchea scored a game-high 20 points for Hemingway, which also received 10 points each from Desmond Pressley, Darius Taylor and JaQuan Julious.
“We have a lot of offensive weapons and we just wanted to be patient all night,” Hemingway coach Andre Weathers said.
D.J. Goss, who Mezzatesta expected to contribute roughly 15 points and 10 rebounds per game this season, has missed the entire season with a broken foot suffered during football, though the team is hopeful he’ll return in time for the start of the playoffs.
“That’s a double-double out of the lineup every night,” Mezzatesta said. “The last 12 games of last year and all summer long he was unbelievable, and we did not play an easy summer schedule. … He was coming into his own. And the No. 1 thing we miss with D.J. is his leadership.”
Alan Blondin: 843-626-0284, @alanblondin
This story was originally published February 6, 2016 at 1:05 AM with the headline "Hemingway downs Carvers Bay to take control of Region VIII-A."