Sunday, December 22, 2002
Mike Phillips led the unbeaten Raiders with 11 points.
By BOB ROTH
VINDICATOR CORRESPONDENT
WARREN -- Warren Harding High improved to 4-0 this season with a 71-41 victory over The Rayen School in a non-league boys basketball game Saturday night.
The game was closely contested into the second quarter, as Warren Harding, leading 15-10 after one period of play, never went beyond that five-point lead in the early going.
Despite five early turnovers, the Tigers (1-6), with 6:25 remaining in the first half, trailed by only two points, 16-14, thanks to a Calvin Allen field goal. Then came a deluge of errors by the Tigers along with Warren Harding's mastery of the boards, and a 12-0 Raider run in less than two minutes had Warren on top 28-14 with 4:35 remaining in the half. The run was punctuated by a Prescott Burgess field goal and free throw.
Pulling away
The Raiders led 40-20 at halftime with the last three Warren Harding baskets coming from Mario Manningham, two of them were on steals and coast to coast layups.
Rayen could only muster four points in the third quarter and trailed 53-24 into the final period of play which had reserves from both teams on the court.
"I was pleased overall," said Warren Harding coach Steve Arnold. "We did what we had to do and took care of business and our upperclass guys certainly did that, but later with reserves in we got a little ragged."
Senior guard Micheal Phillips, who along with Josh Johnson and Manningham led the Raiders with 11 points each, said "After a tough game last night we knew we had to come out early and take control of this game."
Young team
Veteran Rayen coach Phillip House said, "We started off well, but when their press began to hurt us, the game got away. We are very young and tonight we played against a very good, veteran team."
Leon Brock, a 6-foot-2 senior swingman, led the Tigers and was the game-high scorer with 16 points. Wesley Triplett had 12 of Rayen's 29 rebounds while Harding dominated the boards on both ends of the court.
They had 42 rebounds with Burgess grabbing 11 and Johnson 10. Burgess also had four steals and Danny Stella dished out six assists.