State tournament game 1: Garner Road 44, Triangle Flight 31

Here is a fundamental tenet of AAU basketball scheduling: you never, ever want to be the first game of the night/day. Coming off last weekend's brunch in the Word of God parking lot before the 8 a.m. game, Triangle Flight again had the first game of the state tournament Friday night at Fletcher Academy. There's only one problem with wanting to get into the gym to warm up before the first game of the night: the person responsible for unlocking the gym very rarely has to go through warmups, and almost certainly won't be there when you get there.

By the time Flight did break down the door, there were only about ten minutes to warm up. That rushed feeling carried over to the game, as the host squad struggled to take care of the ball in the opening minutes. That had two results: it allowed Garner Road to get easy transition buckets, and it prevented Triangle Flight from setting up any defensive pressure and forcing any turnovers of their own.

As a result, Garner Road bolted to a 17-2 lead and held that advantage more or less the rest of the way. If this tells you anything about Triangle Flight's execution, Coach Mike had lost his voice by early in the second half.


The next pool play game will be Saturday at 1:40 p.m. at Fletcher Academy. Sunday's game time will not be known until after that game.

Shot of the day: Dominic had one of his best efforts of the season, playing strong in the paint, and twice turning rebounds into baskets, including on the second Flight hoop of the second half. 

Big on the boards: Keegan very nearly had a double-double, pulling down 11 rebounds to go with his six points. 

Defensive award: Good job by the Flight posts in bottling up the Garner Road big man, who was both tall and very nimble. But tough defense and contesting every shot limited him to just 1-of-8 from the field.

Stat of the day: Triangle Flight struggled to take care of the ball early, turning it over 15 times in the first six minutes of the game. Not coincidentally, that corresponded to a 17-2 start for Garner Road. When the turnovers slowed down from that point forward, the game was fairly even.

Game 1 box score

                         1st     2nd      Total

Garner Road     29      15         44

Flight                14      16         30

Field goal shooting

Garner Road 18-47 (38.3%)

Flight: 12-49 (24.5%)

Free throw shooting

Garner Road 8-14 (16.7%)

Flight 7-28 (25%)