PCA hands Campus Prep tough lesson|[12/13/2005]
Published 12:00 am Tuesday, December 13, 2005
For a first-year program, Campus Prep is learning basketball the hard way.
The school located on Fisher Ferry Road and formerly known as Southside Christian, is playing in its first season of organized basketball as a member of the Mississippi Private School Association. That means games against well-established programs like Rebul, Tri-County, Sharkey-Issaquena, and on Monday night, fellow Vicksburg private school, Porters Chapel.
Making things even tougher is that Campus Prep does not have a viable gym to play any home games. Every one of its 16 or so games will be a road game.
“This is our first year to play basketball and we went ahead and became MPSA certified,” said Campus Prep coach Lynn Townsend, whose team lost 56-17 to PCA. “We kind of jumped right in there but we couldn’t play as an independent because of the distance involved.”
Playing in its first “hometown” game, Campus Prep (0-9) got to enjoy being ahead, albeit, ever so briefly.
Suzanna Currington banked home a 12-foot shot to put Campus Prep in front 2-0. Then Porters Chapel scored the next 24 points and another long night was upon the Lady Warriors.
“Our goal for the season is to just play and come together as a team,” Townsend said.
Currington and Chelsea Ashley each scored six points.
“Chelsea does a good job and Suzanna did good with her shots,” Townsend added.
For Porters Chapel, the game provided a chance to improve offensively. It started slow, missing its first 12 shots, but got better as the game went along.
Katie Ross came off the bench and hit her first two shots, then followed up by making three more in the second quarter, putting her in double figures by halftime. She finished with a game-high 15 points.
“I’ve never scored that many,” Ross said. “I hope to do it again. We didn’t do that well on Saturday but tonight was better. We did better with our free throws.”
PCA (2-2) went 9-of-13 from the line. They were 22-of-64 from the field. Lauren Johnson chipped in 14 points and Shelby Wells had 10.
“With everything that’s gone on, we’re just trying to get better as a team for Coach E (Chris Etheridge),” Ross said.
Etheridge, the Lady Eagles’ coach and PCA’s athletic director, was involved in a near-fatal automobile accident in October. He is currently undergoing intensive rehabilitation.
E.J. Creel is coaching the Lady Eagles in Etheridge’s absence.
“We’re a team that’s trying to find our own game. In our other games we let the other team decide how we’d play,” Creel said. “Our free throws were much better tonight. We’ve also had people who were afraid to shoot the ball, but they shot it tonight.”
(B) PCA 51, Cham.-Hunt 41
Hayden Hales tossed in 22 points to keep Porters Chapel unbeaten at 5-0.
The Eagles were up by just a point at 36-35 entering the fourth quarter, but two inside baskets by Hales along with a key 3-pointer from Cole Smith helped PCA extend the advantage to 10 points at 47-37.
Dan Ivey chipped in 11 points and Matt Cranfield added 10 for PCA.
Chamberlain-Hunt (6-4) was led by Keldric Scott’s 13 points.