Posted on 06 January 2009 by .
by Stephen M. Lewis
DigitalSports Richmond
slewis@digitalsports.com
One down, at least one more to go.
The John Marshall–Douglas Freeman battle surpassed its infancy for the 2008-09 season, as the Justices prevailed 84-80 holding off a Rebel comeback attempt.
Travis McKie poured in 29 points, and Quantae Cooley added 22 as John Marshall, ranked fourth in the DigitalSports Top 10.
It was Cooley’s best day as Justice on the basketball court. The Thomas Jefferson transfer poured in 14 points in the first period, including two 3-pointers, as JM held a 25-17 lead after McKie’s thunderous dunk off a feed from PG Randall Ward (15 points).
The Ward-McKie tandem is becoming lethal in transition.
Of Ward’s six assists, four were to McKie for high-flying jams: an alley-oop to put JM ahead 35-32 near the end of the half, a two-handed finish that stole momentum at the start of the third period and an emphatic one-hand tomahawk that forced a Freeman timeout at 52-42.
That’s when things unraveled for the No. 2 Rebels as the bench received two technical fouls at the end of the period, resulting in four McKie free throws.
But Freeman was long from done, scoring 32 points in the fourth period, including 12 points from Phillip Rohrer.
He scored seven straight early to pull Freeman within seven. Then he sandwiched a two-pointer and a trey around a Josh Brinkley (18 points) score.
The trey went through with 3:29 left as the Rebels trailed by one.
“We were just trying to push and play defense, that’s what we are, we’re defensive,” said Rohrer, who finished with 16 points. “I just got hot, they got me the ball. We forced the ball inside to Josh near the end, and we almost came back.”
The free-throw line haunted Freeman, who went 5 for 10 in the two minutes after trailing by the slimmest of margins.
JM didn’t fare too much better going 3 for 5 in that span, but McKie and Cooley had big field goals to stretch the margin to five with 1:02 remaining.
“We made mistakes, but overall we played good,” said Cooley, who also had seven rebounds. “This is a start for us. We were saying all week, it starts right here.”
It finished interestingly. JM led 82-75 on two free throws by Maurice Johnson (14 points), but Freeman’s Justin Mann answered with a 3-pointer off the glass with 19.5 seconds to go. He had 13 points.
JM turned the ball over on the inbounds then fouled Jake Eastman (15 points) shooting a 3-pointer. Eastman buried the first two and looked like he missed the third on purpose to try to get a rebound and stickback for the tie.
But Billy Giles was called for pushing McKie (10 rebounds, three steals), as the sensational junior buried two free throws to end the threat, but not the series.
JM visits rowdy Freeman Friday, February 6.
Douglas Freeman 17 17 14 32 – 80
John Marshall 25 10 23 26 – 84
Douglas Freeman (6-1 Colonial, 11-2): Eastman 15, Mann 13, Smalley 0, N. Turner 0, Smith 0, O’Connor 5, Giles 4, Rohrer 16, Brinkley 18, Tucker 9. Totals: 28 16-28 80. 3-point goals: Mann 3, Eastman 2.
John Marshall (6-0, 10-1): Ward 14, M. Johnson 14, Cooley 22, E. Johnson 0, McKie 29, Brown 3, Braxton 2. Totals: 31 18-31 84. 3-point goals: Ward 2, Cooley 2.
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