Lexington outshoots West Davidson

Tue. January 24, 2012 at 11:00 p.m. | By Mike Duprez

TYRO | West Davidson might have been able to stop two of Lexington’s players. But four? That’s too much.

The Yellow Jackets kept attacking the basket in waves, placing four players in double figures, as they outgunned West 89-69 in a Central Carolina Conference game at Crim Court.

Mikal Lewis scored 17 points while C.J. Woodberry and Keith Horton scored 15 points each and Mel Covington had 14. The CCC leaders made just two 3-pointers but repeatedly found holes in West’s 2-3 zone with aggressive moves to the rim.

“Oh yeah, we did pretty good,” said Lexington coach Robert Hairston. “We put them on the free throw line too much. We played good defense and we got to the basket. We’ve got a bunch of guys who can score.”

Lexington, 8-8 overall, is now 5-0 in the CCC. The Jackets lead Central Davidson by a game.

West (4-11 overall, 1-4 CCC) wasn’t about to play man-to-man but with so many players contributing, the Dragons had their hands full. By the first minute of the second quarter, eight Lexington players had reached the scoring column.

“They got a lot of easy baskets,” said West coach Russ Snyder. “They went to the hole very aggressively. They’re very, very quick, very athletic.”

The Dragons tried to keep pace behind the one-two punch of Austin Teague and freshman standout Nolan Benson. Teague scored a game-high 20 points and was 7-of-9 from the free throw line. Benson had 19 points, including a perfect 11-for-11 from the free throw line.

Lexington’s 22-point first quarter forced West into more of an uptempo game than Snyder wanted. But the Dragons whittled a 19-point Lexington lead down to 11 at 61-50 on a scoop shot by Teague and a driving layup by point guard Taylor Beck in the final minute of the third quarter.

“Going into the fourth quarter, it’s an 11-point game,” Snyder said. “We felt good.”

It was still 65-54 with plenty of time left when Benson made a nice post move and hit a layup.

But Horton came back with a short-range jumper and then the Jackets forced a turnover with backcourt pressure. Covington put back his own missed shot off the turnover. Horton came up with yet another steal, drove to the hoop and converted a three-point play. That made it 72-54 and Lexington coasted after that.

“Lexington has a lot of quick guards,” Snyder said. “They’re really aggressive.”

After being held to two points in the first half because of foul trouble, Woodberry dominated in the fourth quarter with nine of his points.

“They’ve got to understand there’s a difference between playing Thomasville and Salisbury and playing West Davidson and East Davidson,” Hairston said. “They let us bang like crazy at Thomasville. They let us bang against Salisbury. But at East and West, we’re not going to get that. We have to adjust to that.”