The Lakewood Leopards boys varsity basketball team took on the Gators of Spring Creek on Friday night, only to be clobbered 62-48 in a game that was even worse for the Leopards than the score indicates.

The Gators led the ballgame the whole way, aside from a 2-2 tie early on in the match. Spring Creek used a very successful game on offense to take control and never looked back, leading 14-6 at the end of the first quarter and increasing their lead to 12 at the break. They would hold a dominant lead throughout much of the game, stifling any potential Lakewood comeback.

Spring Creek led by as much as 21 at one point and were on their way to an even larger blowout until the Leopards knocked down a couple of threes to cut the lead to 13 at one point late in the fourth quarter, but Spring Creek calmly put the small Lakewood rally to sleep with some shots of their own.

It was a frustrating game for the Leopards after winning two straight games as they’d hoped to gain more momentum heading late into the season.

Despite the loss, Lakewood head coach Sylvester Pittman felt like his team played above-average on defense.

“We played good defense,” Pittman said. “I thought our defensive effort was really good, we just didn’t capitalize on their turnovers.”

When asked if he thought any of the fatigue from Thursday’s game could have potentially carried over into Friday’s game, Pittman denied that and pointed out that Spring Creek also had a game on Thursday.

With the loss, his team drops to 5-6 overall and 3-3 in the conference.

Spring Creek head coach Taylor Jones praised his team for their aggressiveness.

“We didn’t turn the ball over too much and we attacked,” Jones stated.

Jones, however, said that his team will be working on rebounding the ball better, as that is an area where he felt his team did not do so well on Friday.

The Gators improve to 10-5 with the win and 5-1 in conference play.

Quamaine Williams soars toward the basket for a layup in Friday’s contest against Spring Creek.
https://www.clintonnc.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/web1_Williams-1.jpgQuamaine Williams soars toward the basket for a layup in Friday’s contest against Spring Creek. Adam Johnson | Sampson Independent

By Adam Johnson

Sports Writer

Reach Daron Barefoot at [email protected].