South keeps pace in the City

Prologue
Off to South for a city conference showdown between South and Patrick Henry.  Light crowd on hand for Teacher's Appreciation Night.  Minnehaha Academy in the house looking at South for their matchup next week.  Taco in a bag on the menu, but too early for the sour cream.  Might have been a mistake as there just wasn't the proper texture and I think the sour cream would have done it.  No Deonte Blakemore on the Henry roster which is disappointing.  I think I can officially put the dagger in that league MVP selection.  Since we're at South, let's go with this hit for today's music.

Song of the Day
Southside - Moby featuring Gwen Stefani

Game Time
Its a quick start for Henry.  Soph Darius Hill with a free throw for a 7-0 Patriots lead and a South timeout.  Then he finishes a regular layup followed by a reverse layup.  13-4 Henry at the 12:37 mark and they inexplicably take a timeout.  South makes them pay as Carnell Sheppard kicks out not once, not twice but 3 times is nice for 3s.  Then off a baseline out of bounds, Juwan Ashman hits his 3rd of South 4 bombs in a 12-0 run.  16-13 South at the 7:55 mark.  That's right after Henry post Latrell Love goes to the bench for the last 8:33 with 2 fouls.  20 all at the 5:35 mark before South ends the half on a 14-5 run.  Sheppard with 2 free throws, an assist for a layup and 2 3s in the run.  34-25 South at the half.  Sheppard with 12 points and 4 assists for 11 more points (23 of the 34 points).  Darius Hill 9 to lead Henry.

Sheppard with 2 free throws and then a post bucket as South quickly pushes the lead to 43-29 with 14:50 left.  Then Henry starts to scramble defensively and turn the game into more chaos.  1 turnover leads to a Wunell Beard layup and Hill with his 2nd steal and bucket of the half as Henry scores 6 in a row.  43-35 South with 13:23 left. The lead stays in that range for the next 6 minutes with Hill keeping the Henry offense going.  Then Hill with a baseline jumper as Henry cuts the lead to 6.  Sheppard counters with an assist to Ashman for a layup.  Then Love on the offensive glass, South misses a front end and Hill drives for a layup. Sheppard counters that with a spin and lefty finish in the lane.  62-56 South with 5:22 left as Henry takes a timeout.  Hill still doing work as he makes 2 free throws and Tim Gill adds a free throw to cut the lead to 62-59.  Then a Hill touch foul at halfcourt and Gill picks up a technical for yapping on the foul line.  Andrew Burton steps up and makes all 4 free throws (2 shot bonus was in effect + the 2 Ts).  On the possession, Love wraps up Sheppard for 1 free throw and its a 5 point possession.  That pushes the lead back to 8.  Hill with another layup.  Mohamed Mohamed with 2 free throws on the other end on what appeared to be a clean Jeff Bright block.  He goes glass next time down and Sheppard counters with an assist to Mohammed for a layup.  Henry won't get closer than 5.  South wins 74-69.

Post Game
For Henry, seeing the 2 fouls and the T with 3:48 left, arguing about shooting the game ball at halftime and the JV head coach texting during his game just demonstrates a serious lack of discipline in the program.  Soph Darius Hill has quickly evolved into Henry's top player.  He finishes with 23 of his 32 in the 2nd half putting the Henry offense on his back.  Latrell Love held to 12 points and 9 rebounds thanks to the South 2-3 zone.   Henry falls to an underachieving 10-12 and they've now lost 5 out of 6.  They play at Southwest Friday before showdowns at North on Monday and at DeLaSalle on Tuesday.  But as demonstrated by their win over Columbia Heights earlier in the year, the can be dangerous come section time.

For South, Carnell Sheppard 24 points.  I also had him with 6 assists that became 15 more points.  Good shooting night for South as center Mohamed Mohamed hits 2 3s and finishes with 12 points.  Andre Burton 1 triple and 11 points.  Juwan Ashman 3 triples and 13 points.  Don't know if it was because Mahari Wilson was out, but Carnell Sheppard was playing PG most of the night and you could really really see the difference.  Especially when Henry was all over the place trying to trap and scramble, when he had the ball, it settled down, otherwise it was nuts.  South stays 1 game back in the loss column in the league and they host North on Friday night.  South now 11-11 but they gave Johnson and Benilde-St. Margaret's very good games and had a great chance to beat Wisconsin's top D3 team La Crosse Aquinas in La Crosse.  They've now won 8 out of 10 since that La Crosse trip so don't expect them to be an easy out in the 3/6 or 4/5 game in section 6AAAA.