Washington, Paulding County Pick Up "Lemon Street" Wins On Day Two
On Monday, the annual Lemon Street Classic continued at Marietta High School with day two of a full slate of boys high school basketball action on two courts. The main gym began with the Washington Bulldogs looking to bounce back after having their four game win streak snapped their on Saturday in their loss to St. Anne-Paceli on day one of the classic. Taking on Upson-Lee, the Bulldogs would take advantage of their size advantage as Kameryn Fountian would make his presence felt down low for Washington as they would go on to pick up the 85-59 win.
“Utilizing our size, playing smarter basketball,” were keys to the Bulldogs bounce back win on Monday head coach, Brian Weeden said afterwards. “Sometimes we’re not as smart as we need to be,” Weeden added as he referenced their loss on Saturday in which the Bulldogs found themselves in a 16 point deficit and despite managing to battle back to take a four point lead, “we forgot everything we did to get back in the game,” Weeden said. Therefore, the Bulldogs mission on Monday was “to attack the paint,” taking advantage of their size and getting quality play from their guards.
Game two on the main court would feature the Paulding County Patriots, looking for back to back wins for the first time this season after picking up a 56-48 win over Peachtree Ridge on Saturday, taking on the Albany Academy Cadets out of New York. The Cadets’ opened up on an 8-0 run thanks to a couple of three point baskets and while the Patriots would get within two points after a 6-0 run of their own, as they trailed 8-6, Albany would close out the quarter on a 8-3 run to lead 16-9 at the end of the quarter.
However in the second quarter, the Patriots would settle into their game plan and begin to get better play on both ends of the quarter as they got a huge spark from guard Tyler Shields (21 points) who would connect on several three point baskets in the quarter. Paulding County would own the second period of play as they outscored the Cadets 21-12 to take a 30-28 lead into the locker room at the break.
The Patriots would build upon their lead in the third quarter as they would once again outscore the Cadets 29-15, increasing their lead to 16 points by the end of the quarter. However, despite trailing by as many as 20 points, Albany battled back thanks to full court pressure that forced the Patriots to turn the ball over several times, allowing the Cadets to get within nine points at one point, but unfortunately, the Patriots would manage to hold off the Cadets for the 76-65 win.
“The guys just came our style,” Paulding County head coach, Kevin Hammitt said after the win on Tuesday adding that nerves early on played a role in the Patriots falling behind in the first quarter. “They were a little nervous earlier, Second quarter on, we played our style, got after it on defense and our guards kind of took over the game,” Hammitt said, which was especially true of the play of Fields and Franzyr Chardaroine (32 points) who combined for 53 of the Patriots’ 76 points.
