Campbell bounces back, beats Lakeview 71-41

By Chuck Housteau

CAMPBELL — An opening season loss to Cardinal Mooney last week didn’t dampen the confidence of the Campbell Memorial High basketball team.

“We’re a work in progress,” Campbell coach Brian Danilov said Tuesday.

The veteran coach of the Red Devils had to like the work his Devils put into preparing for the team’s second game at home against Lakeview.

Campbell (1-1) got 16 points from Nate Hodge, 14 from Claxton LeBron and shot nearly 66 percent from the field in disabling a young Bulldogs team, 71-41.

“We still have a lot of work to do,” Danilov said after the 30-point win. “We are trying to mesh as a team.

“We have some first-year guys playing with some veterans and we have players that joined the team late from other sports, so we still are trying to put things together and become a team.”

Campbell jumped out to a 19-3 lead over Lakeview by hitting 9 of its first 10 shots from the field.

Campbell’s defense rattled a Lakeview team that is playing with all underclassmen and includes three starting sophomores.

“It’s great when you shoot the ball like we did tonight,” Danilov said. “Shooting the ball well makes up for a lot of deficiencies.

“When you shoot the ball well you can’t help but look good.”

By halftime, the Devils were still hitting at a 75 percent clip as they opened up a 37-19 lead.

Lakeview (1-3), on the other hand, struggled out of the gate against Campbell’s pressure defense.

The Bulldogs turned the ball over eight times in the first half and only made 1 of 7 shots in the first quarter.

“We came out with a lot of nervous energy,” said Lakeview coach George Lanterman. “Campbell has a great program here and coach Danilov has a lot of kids coming back from last season and we knew they were going to get up into us.

“Until you have gone through something like that and play against the athletes Campbell has it takes a little bit to get used to it.”

Lakeview settled down and was able to play the Devils at a competitive level in the second and third quarters.

“I think after the first five minutes we settled down and played OK,” said Lanterman. “We didn’t play good but we were OK.”

Besides the scoring prowess of Hodge and LeBron, Campbell had six other players score.

Jerah’me Williams ran the point guard position and tallied 12 points while Lester Hughes had 10.

Post player Doug Jones added eight points while his backup, Dwaylon Letlow had six rebounds.

“I think we can be a good shooting team and a good team,” Danilov said. “The main word is team. We still have to become a team and play good team defense and learn to share the basketball.”

Lakeview was led in scoring by Brandon Bensing who came off the bench to knock in 13 points. Justin Misterka added eight points while Matt Beaman pulled down five rebounds.