The Chargers hit the road to Panama City, FL to take part in the Gulf Coast Classic hosted by Gulf Coast State College. The team had a tough task ahead of them facing off against two good teams on Thursday & Friday. The men were able to split the games to bring their season record to 3-3.
On Thursday the Chargers faced off against the Commodores of Gulf Coast State College who are led by former-Charger Head Coach Phil Gaffney. The Chargers fell behind by 14 early in the first half but were able to cut into the Commodores’ lead by the half, trailing 46-49. GHC hit a 3 to start the second half and tie the game at 49. Unfortunately, GCSC immediately regained the lead and would never trail again. The Chargers worked to keep in close, trailing by just 5 with about 10 minutes remaining. But after that point, turnovers and cold shooting resulted in GHC being outscored 26-7 over the next 6 minutes, trailing 78-97. When the final buzzer sounded, GCSC had pulled away to win 105-84 over the Chargers. After the game, Head Coach J.J. Merritt was reflective on his team’s performance. “It was a hard-fought game that eventually came down to execution and teamwork. Gulf Coast just did a better job than we did and we let a close game get out of hand. We have to learn to play together for 40 minutes.” No individual stats were available.
On Friday, the Chargers faced another tough task in #15 Daytona State College. As expected, the game was close for most of the contest. In the first half, neither team was able to pull away and the score was deadlocked at 46 going into the break. The second half saw Daytona State open the scoring to pull out to a 7-point lead with 18:00 left. Over the next 9 minutes, GHC would outscore Daytona State 29-30 to open a 9-point lead with 9:00 remaining. The Charger Men would push the lead to 94-81 with a little over a minute remaining and cruise to a final winning score of 101-91. Carl Johnson led the way for the Chargers with a game-high 29 points, including five 3-pointers and going 12-14 from the free throw line. Trevin Wade added 17 and Tajah Fraley 14 to pace the Chargers in the win. As expected, Coach Merritt was very pleased with the big win. “After losing the way we did yesterday [against Gulf Coast], this was a much-needed victory. To bounce back and beat the #15 team in the country was tremendous. It was really a total team effort. I’m really proud of how the guys stuck together and played unselfish basketball. If we can keep playing as a team, we can do some special things this year.”
The Chargers return to Florida for games next Friday and Saturday at the Tallahassee Tournament before returning to the Corral on Tuesday, November 26 to take on Summer Hill Prep at 7:30PM.