Capacity crowd shows up for county rivalry game

A capacity crowd watched the varsity boys’ and girls’ basketball teams of county rivals Hartsville and Darlington play two high energy games Friday night at Darlington with the pair splitting the bill.

In the later game, the Hartsville boys jumped out to an early lead but faded in the fourth quarter to fall 68-63, while the Hartsville girls won 44-30 for an important road victory.

Varsity girls win 44-30
Coach Pat Hewitt’s girls stayed a step ahead of the Falcons jumping out to a 40-21 lead in the third quarter and never looking back. Both teams scrambled for loose balls and showed hustle with Darlington hitting some threes and getting to the free throw line to close it to 41-30. Jasmine Phillips stopped the Darlington run by getting fouled under the basket while shooting with about 2:30 left to go, hitting one to make it 42-30. Emily Jackson made the line as well. The Red Foxes would win 44-30.

Leading scorers were Kiasiah Ham and Phillips, both with 13 points. Afterward, Coach Hewitt said her leading scorers were great team players, and that point guard Ham, a top ranked player in the region, was back after suffering a season ending injury early last season.

“We like to run the ball down the floor. We like to play tenacious defense. We like to change the defense up a lot,” Hewitt said, pointing out she put in younger players toward the end of the game. “Everybody got some playing time, which is good, because after the first five or six players we are very young.”

The team plays under the motto that like a lighthouse, they want to shine light whenever they go, getting brighter with time, Hewitt said. They’ll have to facing a punishing schedule including Marlboro County, Wilson and Spring Valley.

Varsity boys fall 68-63
An indication of the energy from the crowd came early when the Hartsville team was booed loudly just for entering the court.

The energy was high from the teams too from tipoff with Hartsville taking the early advantage. Red Fox Chris Ketter switched hands mid air for a layup to make it 7-5 early. Joseph Peterson would lay-in a Ketter miss to extend the lead, and Gavin Thomas would hit a three after a steal to make it 16-14 Foxes. It would be 25-18 after a Demarcus Cook lay-up for Hartsville, and it would be 31-29 at halftime.

Down the stretch in the second half Hartsville stayed within five points much of the way but never caught Darlington. Jordan Scott would score 26 for Darlington while for Hartsville Ketter had 18, Cook 13 and Thomas had 12.

Red Foxes Head Coach Aric Samuel said the young team needed to use its non-conference games to improve for later games that counted toward the playoffs. Darlington put a lot of talent on the court.

“This was a good test for us. I’m proud of them,” Samuel said. “We missed some opportunities. We let them off the hook kind of, but that’s how it goes.”

Executing the plays as designed is still a work in progress. An important aspect of the offense clearly will be big man Demarcus Cook under the basket, who scored easy points for stretches of Friday’s contest.

“I’m trying to determine how we play this year: do we slow it down for the big guy or do we get it cooking?” Samuel said. “I thought we’d get it cooking.”