Cougars' Carmon delivers 27-point outing

By Rudy Coggins
Published in Sports on December 3, 2015 1:48 PM

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Stay focused.

Ignore the crowd and rivalry.

Just play basketball.

They did it well early.

But foul trouble plagued and discouraged both teams, and Eastern Wayne forgot about the "X" factor -- Goldsboro guard Myron Carmon. The senior dropped in a game-high 27 points, including 21 from 3-point range, during the Cougars' 94-80 before a boisterous standing-room-only crowd Wednesday evening.

"I don't know how to descibe it," GHS head coach Russell Stephens said. "It's a rival game. I thought both teams played extremely hard, but at the same time, so both teams make a lot of mistakes. You get this kind of sloppy play in a rivalry games sometimes.

"We were fortunate to come over here and get a win. Eastern Wayne, they were ready to play."

But Stephens and EW head coach Chris Roberts wondered who would finish out the game. Two Cougars -- Ronnie Tookes and Jyrek Robinson -- had three fouls apiece. Eric Agee, Jeremiah Miller and Yeonte Royall were each saddled with three fouls.

Officials called 33 first-half fouls that led to 40 free throw attempts.

Carmon drained five 3-pointers to help Goldsboro build a slim 52-43 advantage at halftime. The senior guard, who has surpassed 1,000 points for his career, added a pair of treys in the third quarter as the Cougars' lead reached double digits.

"We knew going in who the 'X' factor was and we talked about that," Roberts said. "That says a lot about how hard that Myron works on his game. He's hard to guard one-on-one man-to-man and zone-wise, he's very smart and they're going to look to get him the ball.

"No disrespect to the other (Goldsboro) players, but they feed off of him and they play hard because he's the engine."

Eastern Wayne's motor, senior KK Best, continues to heal from a handstring injury he sustained during football season. The senior led four Eastern Wayne scorers in double points with 19, including a stellar 9 of 10 performance from the free throw line.

"That just shows what kind kid he is," Roberts said of Best.

However, the Warriors (0-2 overall) couldn't overcome 27 turnovers and lost the rebounding battle 40-25.

"We just ran out of gas," said Roberts, who plans to stress conditioning during the next few practices after the Warriors travel to North Lenoir todays.

Reserve Eric Bufkin and Kisheem Faison collected 15 points apiece for Goldsboro. Faison contributed three rebounds, three steals and one assist. Jalin Thomas provided 12 points, five rebounds, six assists and three steals.

Nakia Atkins tallied 11 points.

The Warriors' Yeonte Royall scored 13 third-quarter points and finished with 17 overall. Coriante Foy supplied 15 points, five rebounds and two blocked shots. Agee scored 10 points.

Ethan Molloy had three blocked shots.

The teams meet again Dec. 18 at Norvell T. Lee Gym on the GHS campus.