Billiris’ big night propels Campbell

February 7, 2015 at 12:06a.m.

CAMPBELL

Campbell Memorial High basketball player George Billiris has yet to meet a shot that he didn’t feel like taking.

But after scoring a team-high 20 points to lead his Red Devils to Friday’s 64-62 victory over Liberty, all he could talk about was his steal with three seconds remaining.

“He’s [Liberty’s Lynn Bowden] right-hand dominant, so I forced him right and just went for the ball,” Billiris said. “I took a risk and it happened to work out.

“This is a great feeling because it’s our fourth straight win.”

The Leopards (4-12, 3-6 All-American Conference Blue), a 50-47 winner over the Red Devils in their first meeting in December, took a 17-14 lead after one quarter behind five points each from Ben Phillips and Bowden.

“It was a back-and-forth first half and I felt like neither team got into the flow of the game,” Campbell head coach Mike Szenborn said.

Mike Williams’ six points and five more by Billiris in the second quarter helped the Red Devils (7-10, 4-5) pull to within 32-31 at the break.

“Coach Szenborn told us at halftime that we needed to kick it up a notch and make sure that we blocked out,” Williams said.

“We played too slow in the first half and needed to pick up the tempo after intermission,” Williams said. “We wanted to come out fast, but that didn’t happen so the goal was to play more up-tempo in the second half.”

An Aaron Jackson jumper and free throw by Billiris gave the Red Devils a 34-32 lead just 59 seconds into the second half.

A bucket by Billiris at 7:21 of the final period increased the Campbell lead to 51-41, but a 13-2 run by Liberty and two free tosses by Daniel Banks with 3:11 remaining gave the Leopards a 54-53 advantage.

It was short-lived, however, as Campbell fashioned a 7-0 run of their own over the next minute and 37 seconds for a 60-54 advantage.

“After building a 10-point lead in the second half and then falling behind with a little over three minutes remaining, I just told our guys to relax and to execute offensively,” Szenborn said. “I also told them that we needed to make one big play defensively at the end of the game and George [Billiris] made that play.

“It was a really big steal.”

A bucket by Bowden knotted the score at 62-all with 22 seconds, setting up Collins game-winning bucket just 11 seconds later.

Phillips finished with 22 points, including four buckets from beyond the arc. Williams had 15 points while Edgar Toledo had 13 points.

For the Leopards, Bowden scored 19 points.

Liberty head coach Dan Bubon, whose team has lost four straight and eight of their previous nine contests, said his young team is very streaky.

“You expect that when you play a lot of young kids,” Bubon said. “In the third quarter alone, we played a combination that we had never played before.

“Lynn had a great drive to the bucket at the end of the game,” Bubon said. “We need to fix our rebounding but at the same time, need to carry tonight’s effort over the rest of the way. Our kids realized at the end of the game that they put forth a great effort tonight.”