Bishop Gorman (Nev.) tops Sagemont (Fla.) to reach Beach Ball Classic final
Defeating Bishop Gorman (Nev.) in the finals of the 34th Beach Ball Classic at the Myrtle Beach Convention Center is going to be a tall order.
The Gaels and their triple towers reached the Beach Ball championship game with a 64-49 win over Sagemont (Fla.) in the semifinals Tuesday night and will face Franklin (Ohio) and high-scoring guard Luke Kennard in the title game scheduled for 7:30 p.m. Wednesday.
“Our goal was to come in and get to the finals, now that we’re here in the finals obviously our goal is to try and play as well as we can tomorrow night,” Bishop Gorman coach Grant Rice said.
The Las Vegas school features 7-foot senior center Stephen Zimmerman, 6-11 senior Duke signee Chase Collins and 6-11 junior Zach Collins.
Despite a compact zone employed much of the game by Sagemont to limit the Gaels effectiveness inside, Zimmerman had 10 points and nine rebounds, Jeter contributed 13 points and seven rebounds and Collins had three points and four rebounds off the bench a night after contributing nine points, eight rebounds, two blocks and two assists in a quarterfinal win over Shadow Mountain.
“You see we play them together as much as we can,” Rice said. “We have to mix and match, sometimes we have two in there and sometimes we have three. It’s an experiment for us as well because we’re just learning as well. This will probably never happen again to us, let alone in high school basketball.”
The Gaels ran a 3-2 zone defense at times Tuesday with Zimmerman at the top of the key, where a guard would often be for most teams.
“It’s a lot of fun being able to play with two bigs that can play as well,” Zimmerman said, “so we try to help each other out as much as we can.”
Bishop Gorman (12-3) ended the first half on an 8-1 run to take a seven-point halftime lead, opened up an 11-point lead with 7 minutes remaining and kept Sagemont from getting closer than 5 points the rest of the way.
“Sagemont’s a great team. They knocked down so many threes tonight when we were trying to extend the lead and just couldn’t do it,” Rice said. “Finally we got some momentum there in the second half. They missed a few threes and we got some rebounds and some transition points.”
Swingman Nick Blair contributed 14 points and guard Richie Thornton added 13 for Bishop Gorman.
Sagemont was 8 of 22 from 3-point range, and guards Keyshawn Evans and Prince Ali led the Lions (11-3) with 16 and 14 points, respectively.
Bishop Gorman is coming off a disappointing tournament on its home court, the Tarkanian Classic from Dec. 17-20, in which it lost in overtime in the semifinals to highly-regarded Putnam City West (Okla.).
A Beach Ball title would help put that disappointment to rest.
“We played in the Tarkanian Classic in Vegas and we didn’t win it, and it’s our tournament so we were kind of let down, so now we’re trying to win this one,” Zimmerman said.
Zimmerman and the Gaels also have some making up to do at the Myrtle Beach Convention Center.
This is Zimmerman’s third Beach Ball Classic, as Bishop Gorman came in both his freshman and sophomore years, and Bishop Gorman has yet to win the title in his appearances.
The Gaels won the 2009 Beach Ball led by tournament MVP Johnathan Loyd before any of the current members were on the team.
• SAGEMONT (49): Keyshawn Evans 16, Luis Hurtado 2, AJ Jurko 5, Dwayne Frazier 4, Prince Ali 14, Tyler Polley 8.
• BISHOP GORMAN (64): Ugo Amadi 4, Richie Thornton 13, Chase Jeter 13, Nick Blair 14, Stephen Zimmerman 10, Charles O'Bannon Jr. 5, Julian Payton 2, Zach Collins 3.
This story was originally published December 30, 2014 at 11:04 PM with the headline "Bishop Gorman (Nev.) tops Sagemont (Fla.) to reach Beach Ball Classic final."