Mullins’ Felton rewrites Beach Ball record book

Jalek Felton wanted the Beach Ball Classic single-game scoring record. And now he has it.

The Mullins junior and University of North Carolina commit set the mark Wednesday with a 55-point effort against Poca (W.Va.) in an 83-69 Auctioneers victory at the Myrtle Beach Convention Center.

It was three points better than current Duke Blue Devil Luke Kennard’s 52-point game last year while playing for Franklin (Ohio). Felton’s 55 points against the Dots were also four better than his personal best, a 51-point mark he also put up in the 2014 Beach Ball that now gives him two of the top three individual totals in the 35-year tournament.

Felton also tied the tournament record of nine 3-pointers, and his inside-outside game was the pure definition of a dominant individual performance.

Felton said he thought at halftime the record might be within reach. “I thought ‘Just go after it. Be aggressive and just don’t let down,’ ” he said. “I watched [Poca] play Monday and they came out strong in the second half. I knew they’d try to trap me.But I knew I had to keep going to help my team.”

Oddly enough, it wasn’t simply Felton’s scoring early that was impressive. Between 22 first-half points and six assists, he had contributed to all of the Auctioneers’ 36 points before the break (and 74 of the 83 for the game).

Still, assuming he would score 33 second-half points would have been presumptuous, even for Felton. The Dots helped some by playing a faster pace and preventing a blowout. The game was tied with 7:48 to play. From there, Felton scored his final 16 points.

He finished the game 20 of 35 from the floor, 9 of 15 from 3-point range and 6 of 7 from the free-throw line. He added eight assists, three rebounds, two steals and a block, but all that is icing on the cake for coach Steve Smith.

“Critics will say ‘Oh, you’re a one-man team,’ ” Smith said. “But if you’re coaching Walter Payton, aren’t you going to give him the ball? I’m coaching Jalek Felton, and I know what he’s capable of. He made good decisions when he needed to. He took it on his own when he needed to.”

Felton’s individual point total eclipsed that of 14 teams during the opening 20 games of the tournament. The fact that it also came against Poca – a squad coming off a West Virginia state championship – was impressive in its own right.

The Dots used primarily NCAA Division-I recruit Luke Frampton to defend Felton throughout the first 20 minutes before trying Liberty commit Elijah Cuffee. Those two stars finished with a combined 49 points, including 30 from Cuffee, but they were overshadowed by what Felton was able to accomplish.

The Auctioneers guard said earlier this week that he would be transferring to a yet-to-be-determined prep school after this season. For now, he’s appreciative of his Mullins teammates.

“It feels good to have my teammates behind me,” he said. “They’d be the ones who would be upset if they didn’t get the ball. But they’re willing to play with me. If I’m having a good game, they want me to go out and score 100 if I can.

“I know I’m a great scorer and I can pretty much get to the basket any time I want. It was all in success tonight.”

This story was originally published December 30, 2015 at 7:11 PM with the headline "Mullins’ Felton rewrites Beach Ball record book."