Wesleyan Christian boys’ hot shooting leads to road victory over Word of God
Word of God ran into a team that couldn’t seem to miss Tuesday night.
Wesleyan Christian Academy made the trip to Raleigh from High Point and the Holy Rams caught the Trojans on a night when they were on their A game. Wesleyan was on fire from the start and never let up, defeating Word of God 94-82 in a shootout.
The Trojans connected on 14 3-pointers and only missed four free throws, with three of those misses coming in the fourth quarter when the outcome was pretty much determined.
After the Holy Rams battled back late in the fourth, Wesleyan center Kaleb Brooks hit three consecutive 3s to push the Trojans’ lead to six with less than two minutes remaining. Eleven of Wesleyan’s final 13 points came from the foul line.
After tying the score at 75 with 2:44 remaining, Word of God (13-12) missed five of its next eight shots from the floor. Wesleyan closed out the game by going 11-of-14 from the foul line.
“They (Wesleyan) played extremely well as a team,” Holy Rams coach Bryon Williams said. “When a group of guys play together and the coach draws something up and they do it together, that’s teamwork and they won the game as a team.”
They also shot well as a team, especially from deep. Every player for the Trojans hit at least one 3-pointer, with four different players hitting at least three triples. Aisaiah Phillips led the bomb squad with 22 points, 12 of those coming from behind the line. Isaiah Ray also chipped in with 22 points. Kade Darr added 19 with 12 of those coming off 3-pointers. Brooks scored 19 of his own, sealing the game with nine in a row late in the fourth.
Isaiah Todd led the Holy Rams with 19. Chase Forte finished with 17 and led the Word of God comeback charge in the third quarter. After trailing by as many as nine, the Rams’ senior guard took over, scoring eight in a row, tying the score at 60 with an old-fashioned three-point play.
Todd’s three pointer moments later gave Word of God a 63-60 lead, but that wouldn’t last long as Darr hit a three to tie the score at 63 heading into the fourth. The Trojans’ first made basket of the fourth was a 3 — shocker — and the two teams traded the lead several times over the next few minutes before the Rams went cold and Brooks stayed hot, hitting three wide-open shots from deep.
“It’s a make-or-miss type game,” Williams said. “You want to stop the team from putting the ball in the basket. I think they scored on a lot of (defensive) breakdowns.”
Wesleyan got off the bus fired up, jumping out to an 8-0 lead, making all of its first three shots from the field. Word of God then scored nine unanswered to take the lead and led 20-15 after one quarter. The Trojans hit three more from deep in the second quarter and led 43-38 at the break. Wesleyan’s first two made baskets of the third were 3-pointers, and the Trojans never slowed down the rest of the way.
“They exposed some of our flaws,” Williams said. “As the game goes on and on you continue to believe. They finished the game out very well. They played better in the fourth.”
This story was originally published January 28, 2020 at 10:27 PM with the headline "Wesleyan Christian boys’ hot shooting leads to road victory over Word of God."
