An Oconee County High School girls varsity basketball player competes for a rebound with multiple Clarke Central High School players during the Warriors 33-23 win over the Gladiators on Nov. 15. According to CCHS head girls varsity basketball coach Carla Johnson, the Gladiators’ lack of stamina on defense let them down towards the end of the game. “(On) defense, you can always play hard. (When) they outscored us in that third quarter, we had a letdown on defense,” Johnson said. “We stopped doing our rotations like we were supposed to, (weren’t) picking up slack and (weren’t) boxing out. They got two (or) three opportunities per possession and that hurts.” Photo by Lucas Donnelly
The girls and boys varsity basketball teams got their seasons off to inauspicious starts with a pair of decisive losses to Oconee County High School on Nov. 15.
The Clarke Central High School girls and boys varsity basketball teams’ first two games of the season against Oconee County High School were dominated by opening-game jitters and comebacks that never quite materialized, giving the two Gladiator teams losses to begin the year.
Both teams lost by narrow yet decisive margins, as the girls game finished 33-23 and the boys contest ended 61-47. While the final scores did not indicate a blowout, the Gladiator teams led for a total of three minutes across the night and never seriously threatened OCHS.
“This is our first game with this group of young ladies and so our offensive rhythm was thrown off and then we missed some point-blank shots and did not shoot well for the free throw line, just all the way around. That affected our psyche and our rhythm,” head girls varsity basketball coach Carla Johnson said. “(The game is) already high intensity, so sometimes (we) let our emotions take us further out (of) the game.”
“We missed some point-blank shots and did not shoot well for the free throw line, just all the way around. That affected our psyche and our rhythm. (The game is) already high-intensity, so sometimes (we) let our emotions take us further out (of) the game.”
— Carla Johnson,
head girls varsity basketball coach
In a low-scoring affair, the Lady Gladiators saw the game slowly slip away, especially in the latter stages as they pushed forward for a comeback. CCHS center Brooke Sheppard, a junior, pointed to a lack of offensive cohesion as a reason for the loss.
“We’ve got a lot of freshmen playing up with us right now, especially since flag football is still in season, so we just need to keep going over those plays and make sure we know what to do,” Sheppard said. “Since it’s our first game, I know we’ll have the opportunities to work on that and practice and improve in the future.”
Clarke Central High School boys varsity basketball player Deangelo Harris, a junior, defends against an Oconee County High School boys varsity basketball player during the Gladiators’ 61-47 loss to the Warriors. The CCHS offense scored low, which boys varsity basketball coach Stefan Smith believes was a result of poor decision-making. “(We need to be) understanding that when (we’re) not making threes, (we) got to do other things and (we) got to be able to run (our) offense,” Smith said. “We became three-point dependent and that didn’t win us the ballgame. (We were) 8 for 34 from the three-point line. That’s not gonna win ballgames.” Photo by Lucas Donnelly.
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The boys game went similarly, as OCHS never fell behind in points. The Gladiators’ offense struggled with the exception of CCHS point guard Marcus Gillespie, a sophomore, who put up nearly half the Gladiators’ points.
“(Marcus) had 22 points on a bad night, so just imagine what he (can do when he) gets in basketball condition,” Smith said. “But I don’t want us to become just dependent on that. I want people around him to get better. We can’t wait (for) Marcus to save us all the time.”
Gillespie agreed with Smith, saying the team needed to raise their game to ensure future success for the Gladiators.
“As a team, we’ve got to do better. We’ve got to (give) a better performance. My teammates got to step up,” Gillespie said. “I need to step up too overall, but (I wish) my teammates had stepped up a little bit more and did what they had to do.”
