Harrisburg gives CD East the business!!!!

All I can say is WOW!!!!!   This was a day every player and fan was looking forward to....  The Harrisburg Cougars vs the CD East Panthers has become a nice rivalry since 2008 - 2009 season when East had ex Cougars Jonathan Breeden and Terrence Kellum to go along with Demond Bates and Amani Glenn as they walked into Kimber Gymnasium and handed Harrisburg their first home lost in about 6 years....  Since then, it seems as if every East team approach to a game vs Harrisburg is a confident approach....   The PLAYERS seem to really believe they can win....   Today seemed no different as East kept this game close for 2 and a half quarters....    But then the Cougars AWOKE......

The game went back and forth as Harrisburg's game changing senior guard Ashton Cooksey Easter and super sophomore Jahaad Proctor and a three ball by super quick pg Jerel Patterson provided the offense for Harrisburg while 6'5 wing guard Anthony "AWright" Wright and Dwight "Buddy" Whitlock handled the scoring for East.....  

Ashton defending Eddie

It was clear that Harrisburg had a game plan today, "GET THE BALL OUT OF EDDIE'S HANDS!!!!"....  The Eddie I'm talking of is East's sr smooth pg Eddie "Always Steady" Cowan....   Cowan is usually not the guy to kill you with lots of points, but he controls the tempo of a ball game like no other....   Harrisburg ran two guys at Eddie and sometimes three guys which forced someone else to try and make decisions for East....  

On the other end, it seemed as though East was so worried about finding Proctor on the perimeter, they forgot about everyone else...   Bad move because the Cougars are just too deep....  

East turned the ball over a lot in the first half but because the officials called 9 fouls on Harrisburg to 1 foul foul on East by the end of the first, Free Throws kept East in the game....   Patterson, Kyle Cook and Cooksey-Easter all picked up 2 fouls in the first quarter and was forced to sit the rest of the half....  That didn't matter because The Cougars still had Steven Stoney, Don Ralls, Jamaal Carter and Dejour Williams to fill in....   On top of that, they used James Ezel, Chris Britton, Daquan Ware, Dom Lewis and Shoop Sheppard all in the first half and it really wore on East.....

Dejour Williams and Jamaal Carter
warming up

East kept it close trailing 24 - 16 at the end of the 1st quarter and 35 - 29 by the half....   This was looking like a pretty good game....   Eddie had all the guards in foul trouble, AWright had 3 "And 1's" in the first half leading to 9pts early and things looked promising.....   Only problem was, they still had another half to play!!!!!    lol.....

Here came the 3rd quarter and it looked much like the 1st half as Harrisburg went up 39 - 34 after 4 mins....   All of a sudden, the defensive pressure went up an extra level as High Flyer James Ezel got 2 steals and a layup, Proctor then gets a three point play plus 4 free throws then a couple of layups by Stoney, and 5 more points from Shoop helped The Burg go on a 20 - 1 run and a 24 - 6 3rd quarter...   All in a 4 min stretch....  

What made it even worse, I can't recall East's coach calling a timeout to stop this bleeding...   That 4 minute run helped seal the game for Harrisburg as they would eventually go up by as much as 30 points before winning the game 81 - 54....

Harrisburg went on to have balance scoring as usual as Proctor led the way with 21 points shooting 7 - 11 from the field (2 threes) and a perfect 5-5 from the line....  3 steals and 4 rebs as well....   Steven Stoney came off the bench and broke out of his funk and provided 13pts and 11rebs while James Ezel had 10 pts, 5 rebs, 2 steals and a SWEET ALLY OOP dunk from an out of bounds pass from Jamaal Carter....  That dunk brought the roof down as the entire gym erupted....  Even some of the players on East's bench smiled for that one....  

AWight led East with 10pts and 6rebs while Siele Johnson chipped in 9pts and 3 steals...   Always Steady Eddie Cowan finished with 9 points, 7 of them from the line but he was so important for East and he does the things that you don't see in the score book....   I have to say he handled the pressure very well, especially in the first half... 

It would have been nice to see the East players get more direction from their coach in the second half...  There's a lot of young guys that play a ton of minutes and they need guidance more than anything else....   Joe Lemelle and Buddy Whitlock are two sophomores with a world of potential, they just don't seem to understand their role on the team....  I also would like to see East use their big guy Ethan Cooper more...  He's 6'2 and 260lbs but is very nimble on his feet....   A great space eater if you ask me....

Harrisburg can be extremely dangerous once pg Jerel Patterson really understands the pg position...  He's a really talented kid who can get to the basket with ease...  The benefit for him is he has so many other guys who can finish plays, he could average 13 assist a game just by using his abilities to create for others....   If he can do that, it will open up scoring opportunities for him later in the game....   It will also make him more recruitable because at 5'8, most colleges will want him to be a playmaker for others and not himself as much.....   That's just my opinion, and again, he's a great talent.....

Here's some pictures from the guys on both teams....