Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

By Brian Pitts
Enterprise Record

Coach Josh Pittman played Jedi mind tricks with Jackson Powers with the Davie-East Forsyth game hanging in the balance.
“I’m about to run a play for you,” Pittman told Powers. “You’re going to come off a screen, hit a 3 and then turn and scream at me.”
That’s exactly how it went down with 3:36 remaining in Kernersville. Powers’ crunch-time bomb provided a four-point lead and Davie subdued East after losing seven of the previous eight meetings.
Davie 56, Reagan 55
Davie’s varsity boys basketball team has been solid on the defensive end basically all season, but its offense was not up to snuff in the two games prior to a home date with Reagan in the CPC opener on Dec. 10.
After scoring 35 and 48 points in the previous two games, the War Eagles exploded to a 16-5 lead in the first quarter. On Davie’s first shot of the night, Powers splashed a 3-ball. Davie’s second try was a successful trey by Asher Tolbert. Bryson Mickey buried a triple. On a fast break, Mickey lobbed an alley-oop to Elliott Erlandsson, who slammed it so hard he nearly broke the rim. Then Davie’s fourth triple of the first, by Powers, produced the 16-5 lead.
“The rim opened up a little bit for us and I was proud of them,” Pittman said. “We started with a lot of energy. We shot the ball better than we have in a long time.”
And then: “(The alley-oop) was nice. I know we had not had an alley oop since I’ve been at Davie.”
The Raiders (2-3) used a 9-2 run to get within 31-29. That’s when Landon King came through with a big play, scoring on a stickback, drawing a foul and hitting the free throw for a 34-29 advantage.
Reagan made another push and took a 42-41 lead – Davie’s first deficit of the night. King threw a skip pass to the left wing to Ethan Driver, who sank his only 3 of the game at the perfect time. That shot ignited a 9-0 run that included an Erlandsson putback and a King 3.
“It’s been hard for Ethan to get his rhythm back because he didn’t touch a basketball the whole fall,” Pittman said. “He was able to get some shots up on his own, but it was nothing like the workouts that we would do in previous years. He’s still trying to get in his comfort zone with the basketball, and that takes a month or two in my opinion.”
Davie kept Reagan at arm’s length by converting 7 of 10 free throws in the last :51. It was 54-52 at :06 when Powers went to the line. He made both to salt the game away. Reagan banked in a meaningless 3 at the buzzer.
“I knew it was going to be a tough game,” Pittman said. “They were similar to us in returning a bunch of seniors. Monty (Gray) is a real good coach in my opinion, so I knew they were going to be ready to play. I felt like it was a really good win. We battled through adversity, played hard and came up big when we needed to.”
Mickey (14 points, five assists) and Powers (13 points, five rebounds, three steals) led the way. King (eight points) and Driver (six points, six rebounds) helped Davie defeat Reagan for the third time in a row. Another thing that helped was the “Syracuse Zone.”
“We put it in during the walk-through,” he said. “We played it in the first quarter and it gave Reagan a lot of problems. We will keep working on our rotations. I think with the way our conference is set up, if we can master that 2-3 zone, keep the perimeter locked down and the help positions, we will be in good shape. We’ve got to get more physical, though. I was upset about our lack of physicality. We’ve got the bodies and the strength to do it.”
Davie 58, East 54
Three nights later, Davie persevered in another CPC battle.
“I feel like we’re getting there,” Pittman said after Friday’s win at East Forsyth. “But they’ve got to believe it. I can’t be the only one that believes it.”
Driver’s rebound basket gave Davie its biggest lead at 22-7, but East exploded back into the game, tying things at 35-35 when Powers picked up his fourth foul.
Davie would rise to the challenge. Cam Owens attacked the cup and scored to give his team a 48-46 lead. Tolbert scored off the glass with his left hand to tie it at 50. Davie’s next field goal was the shot of the game. Up 51-50, Davie set a double screen for Powers at the top of the key and Mickey fed him the rock. Powers banged the 3 to make it 54-50.
“That was huge,” Pittman said. “Jackson had missed a couple and I told him he’s got to keep being aggressive because eventually you’re going to get an opportunity. I said: ‘I’ve got all the confidence in the world that you’re going to knock it down right when it’s due.’ He was animated after he hit the shot. I felt like he was going to make it. It did not seal the game, but it sucked all the momentum out for them.”
With Davie holding a 57-54 lead, East sent Tolbert to the line with six seconds to go. He hit one to nail down Davie’s sixth win in seven tries.
“They’ve got 5-star (football) athletes on the court, so you’ve got to stay disciplined, do the best you can and make big shots,” Pittman said. “(6-8 junior JB Shabazz) has four Power 5 offers (in football). (6-4 junior Jai Richburg) has three or four Power 5 offers and (6-2 senior JP Gilchrist) has a couple of D-I and D-II offers. They are tough, man. (Richburg) tipped one in in the first half, and it looked like his head was near the rim.”
Powers (12 points, seven rebounds) and Mickey (10 points, seven rebounds, four assists, three steals) were 1-2 again in scoring, but Davie also got important buckets from Tolbert (nine points, three assists) and Isaac Swisher (eight points, 4-of-6 shooting). It was a two-year varsity high for Swisher, who came in averaging 2.1.
Notes: This was only East’s second game because of its run to the fourth round of the football playoffs. … Mickey played all 32 minutes at East. “On the road, you’ve got to go with your gut and try to get it done,” Pittman said. … The Davie-East shooting numbers were nearly the same. Davie went 20 of 48 overall and 5-23 from 3. East shot 20 of 45, including 4-19 from 3.
Davie 56, Reagan 55 – Bryson Mickey 14, Jackson Powers 13, Landon King 8, Ethan Driver 6, Elliott Erlandsson 6, Asher Tolbert 5, Adam Brown 2, Cam Owens 2.
Davie 58, E. Forsyth 54 – Jackson Powers 12, Bryson Mickey 10, Asher Tolbert 9, Isaac Swisher 8, Elliott Erlandsson 6, Ethan Driver 5, Landon King 4, Cam Owens 2.