2007-2008 VCCS State Champions

PHCC Falls in Region Tournament

Patrick Henry Community College’s men’s basketball team lost the quarter-final game of the Region X tournament on Friday. Vance Granville Community College scored on a tip-in at the buzzer to beat PHCC 82-81 in the game played at Rockingham Community College in Wentworth.

“Our season’s over,” said PHCC head coach Kenny Wade, adding that the team’s record for the season is 17-11. PHCC had four players score in double digits in Friday’s game — Ross Williams, 20; Taneiko Robinson, 15 points; Nick Goforth, 13 points; and Darius Echols, 11 points.

Also, Williams was named first-team All Region X, and Goforth was named second team All Region X.

Men's Basketball Region X Tournament
March 4-7 - Supply, NC

Thursday, March 4
1:00 (9) Lenoir CC vs. (8) Johnston CC
3:00 (10) Catawba Valley CC vs. (7) Pitt CC

Friday, March 5
1:00 9/8 winner vs. (1) Guilford Technical CC
3:00 (5) Vance-Granville CC vs. (4) Patrick Henry CC
5:00 10/7 winner vs. (2) Louisburg College
7:00 (6) Rockingham CC vs. (3) Wake Technical CC

Saturday, March 6
3:00 9/8/1 winner vs. 5/4 winner
5:00 10/7/2 winner vs. 6/3 winner

Sunday, March 7
2:00 Men's Championship

PHCC Falls to Guilford Tech

Thursday, January 21, 2010
By CHASE YOUNG - Bulletin Sports Writer

Guilford Technical Community College forced 32 turnovers on the way to an 86-73 win over Patrick Henry Community College on Wednesday night at Stone Hall. “I don’t think we took care of the basketball. We didn’t shoot the ball well. We didn’t execute offensively, and our defense was in spots, and our sense of urgency wasn’t there,” said Patriots coach Kenny Wade. “That’s how we lost this basketball game.”

The Patriots started strong, tying with the Titans on five occasions before the sixth (15-15) came on a put back from Hunter Cullen, but GTCC’s high-pressure defense soon began to take its toll. Following the put back, the Titans (15-3 overall, 7-1 Region X) went on an 11-1 run for a 26-16 lead. Though the Patriots did force their way back to within seven (38-31) at the half, they were never able to tie or take the lead again.

“They get out. They run. They really pushed the ball, so obviously we had to get back on defense. That was the number one thing we told our team, ’cause they’re gonna get out,” said Titans’ coach Phil Gaffney. “They really out-played us up there, so we said, ‘Can’t let Goforth get off and gotta make sure you get back on defense.’ Those, I think, were the two big things that we tried to do tonight,” he added. Goforth had a team-high 14 points for the Patriots.

In the first match-up of these two teams, GTCC held for a 63-61 win over the Patriots. The win kept the Titans undefeated and helped them to a No. 10 spot in the National Junior College Athletic Association’s Division II poll.

After allowing GTCC to pull away at the start of the second half, Ross Williams went 2-for-2 from the line. Nick Goforth followed with back-to-back 3s — the team’s only two of the game — to pull within four points of the lead (43-39), but PHCC never got any closer the rest of the way, as turnovers and cold shooting by the Patriots took its toll. “You gotta do some attacking and getting to the basket,” said Wade. “That’s what killed us tonight. Everybody wanted to shoot 3s. We gotta look to get something going into the basket.

“It was pretty much the same team. They just came out and they wanted it more than we did tonight and that’s why they won the game,” he added.  The Titans’ Travis DeShazior had a game-high 16 points. T.J. Holman added 15, and Charlon Kloof added 10. PHCC’s Anthony Jones recorded 13 points, and Taneiko Robinson helped with 12.

Patriots Upset #10 Louisburg

Wednesday, January 13, 2010
By JOHNNY BUCK - Bulletin Sports Editor

Point guard Ross Williams rebounded Josh McGill’s missed 3-pointer and made the offensive putback with 2.1 seconds remaining to lead Patrick Henry Community College’s men’s basketball team to a 91-89 upset of the nation’s 10th-ranked junior college squad, the Louisburg Hurricanes.

Williams, who led all scorers with 21 points on the night, got the uncontested rebound mere feet from the hoop after McGill’s shot bounced high off the rim, hit the top edge of the backboard and dropped straight down. Louisburg’s players stood still once the ball hit the top of the backboard, erroneously thinking it would be ruled out of bounds.

“We shouldn’t freeze; we should make a play in that situation,” said Hurricanes head coach John Meeks, who felt game officials made the correct call in allowing Williams’ basket “We should get the rebound regardless of whether the whistle blows or not, and we made an assumption that the whistle was gonna blow, and it didn’t, and they laid the ball in and scored.”

Louisburg had one last chance for the victory, but Marese Phelps’ heave from beyond half-court glanced off the left side of the rim as the final horn sounded. “The biggest thing I guess that helped us pull this game out is that these kids kept their composure, played hard and didn’t give up,” said PHCC head coach Kenny Wade. “It’s a huge win.”

Josh McGill added 19 for PHCC, while Nick Goforth and Taneiko Robinson scored 14 points each. The bucket capped an impressive game for Williams, typically the team’s combo guard, who started at the point in place of injured Darius Echols.

Not only did the 6-foot-3 Bealton native lead the way offensively, he helped break the ’Canes press down the stretch, causing Meeks to compare him to Hall of Fame NFL quarterback Troy Aikman for his ability to survey the floor.

PHCC led 45-42 at halftime. The game’s pace quickened in the second stanza, but the Patriots (9-4 overall, 3-1 Region X) never lost the lead despite allowing Louisburg (13-3, 3-1 Region X) to tie the score twice. Marcellous Perez led the ’Canes with 19 points, while Phelps had 16, Jordan Davidson 15 and Fletcher Wynn 12.

Patriots Romp Past Rockingham C.C.
Sunday, January 10, 2010
By CHASE YOUNG - Bulletin Sports Writer

Patrick Henry Community College’s men’s basketball team shot out to an early lead and never let up for a 99-68 rout of Rockingham Community College on Saturday at Stone Hall. “Our defensive intensity was there, and then once we got the lead we started to play a little sloppy, which I didn’t like too swell, but overall it was a good win for us. Any win is good after a long layoff like we had,” said Patriots skipper Kenny Wade.

PHCC (8-4 overall, 2-1 Region X) started the night on an 11-2 run capped by a right-wing 3-pointer from Nick Goforth, and as their full-court defensive pressure remained steady, so too did the turnovers by RCC. “What happened is about what I thought was going to happen, but we’re just trying to weather the storm,” said RCC coach Dean Myrick. “We should have our team back in hopefully a week. We’re just trying to get to that point and not get hurt and so on and so forth.” After starting the season with an 18-person roster, Rockingham brought just six players to the game at PHCC.

Without any true guards, RCC struggled to bring the ball up the court against the Patriots’ pressure and recorded 18 total turnovers in the first half. “We wanted to keep the pressure up on them the whole time,” said PHCC’s Ross Williams. “Coach (Wade) said we’re gonna run ’em, run ’em, run ’em on defense and offense, so we just kept the pressure up the whole time, and they turned the ball over.”

Williams led the Patriots with 24 points, six of which came from 3-point land, and added 13 assists and 10 steals as well. Goforth added 12 points, all of which came from beyond the arc. RCC (9-7, 3-2) attempted to shorten a 20-point gap (37-17) late in the first half as Torrel Priest hit the Eagles’ last five shots, all of which came from behind the arc, but the Patriots maintained their edge and entered the break leading 51-31.

“They didn’t quit, and that was a positive,” said Myrick of his team. “That was good. I thought at a point it was going to be worse than it was. They fought, and that’s all you can ask for.” Priest recorded a game-high 31 points for the Eagles and was aided by Lee Bailey’s 18 and Lawrence Trison’s 12.

The Patriots continued to build on their lead in the second half with a 21-9 run over the first five minutes that had them up 73-40. As PHCC continued to press, the Eagles continued to turn the ball over and never threatened down the stretch. While Wade said he saw “bright spots” in the Patriots’ ability to attack the basket and move the ball offensively, he wasn’t fully pleased with his team’s play.

“I think our offensive execution really needs some work, because we weren’t crisp offensively,” said Wade. “I think we can get a lot better than we are offensively, as far as if we get crisp and stay in our sets and do the things that we’re supposed to do out of our offense.” The Patriots play next at 7 p.m. Tuesday when they host Louisburg Junior College.

Defense Fuels Patriots to Easy Win
Sunday, November 29, 2009
By CHASE YOUNG - Martinsville Bulletin Sports Writer

Thanks to an unrelenting defense, the Patriots turned a sluggish start into a 94-72 rout of Tidewater Community College on Saturday at Stone Hall. “It was our defense,” said PHCC head coach Kenny Wade of the early comeback. “It was a variation of all of it, the trapping, the rotation, the talking, they became a little livelier. That’s what started that run. Defense started to trigger the run.”

Down by as many as eight points in the early minutes of the game, the Patriots (5-2 overall, 1-1 Region X) took a timeout and stepped back on the court with renewed vigor. “I had to light a fire under them,” said Wade after trailing early. “A few words here and there, and that’s what got it going. ...”

Whatever he said, it did the trick. “We just had to pick it up,” said Taneiko Robinson. “We weren’t playing hard at the beginning of the game. Coach (Wade) had to get on us on the timeout. ...” After the PHCC timeout, the Patriots rattled off six straight points to tie it up at 18 on a bank in the paint from Anthony Jones and just kept on going.

“We want to focus on defense; that’s going to get us easy buckets,” said the Patriots’ Ross Williams. “We don’t have to run too much offense when our defense is working, so we try to throw different defenses and pressure the ball at all times.” Williams had 20 points and 10 assists on the day.

Following the tying bank, the Patriots rattled off 26 points while holding the Storm to eight, thanks in part to a variety of full- and half-court defensive looks. At the half, PHCC had a 44-26 lead over Tidewater (2-5 overall).

“The traps was pretty much key to that cause they had a lot of turnovers off the traps, and we capitalized on their turnovers and made shots,” said Robinson of the turnaround. “That’s probably the main reason we won the game, ’cause if we didn’t have our defensive pressure, the full-court traps, and stuff like that who knows how it would’ve turned out,” he added.  Robinson finished the night with a double-double as he recorded 12 points and 10 rebounds.

After gaining the lead midway through the first half, the Patriots never looked back while increasing their lead to as many as 27 points (72-45) in the second half. “We started out well. After coach Wade made some adjustments our defense wasn’t working as well, but I think if our guys had committed to it we still could’ve held ’em down and stayed in the game,” said Storm coach Edward McInnis.

“Coach Wade’s doing a wonderful job with them,” he added. “I think they’re coming to see us and hopefully we’ll be a lot better.”  Wade said that a fourth of the way through the season he’s seeing continued progress in the Patriots’ level of play, and that, “If we keep moving forward each da,y we’re going to turn into a pretty good basketball team.”

Josh McGill had four steals, 10 rebounds and 16 points for the Patriots, and Darius Echols added four steals, five assists and eight points. Tidewater was led by Byron Carpenter’s game-high 29 points. Antoine Bradley added 17 points, and Austin Whitehorne had eight.

Patriots Kick-Off Season with Victory
Thursday, November 5, 2009
By JOHNNY BUCK - Martisnville Bulletin Sports Editor

As the only returning starter on the men’s basketball team at Patrick Henry Community College, Josh McGill understands that he must lead by example. It should come as no surprise, then, that McGill cranked up his defense when the Patriots found themselves in a back-and-forth affair with Massanutten Military Academy’s post-graduate team on Wednesday.

“I really don’t care much about offense. I like to score, but my biggest prerogative is defense for this team,” said McGill. “I figured that if I pick it up on defense, everybody else would.” McGill corralled a career-high six steals to go with 12 points and four rebounds as the Patriots got an 86-67 season-opening victory at PHCC.

The Patriots, who trailed at halftime by two points, pulled ahead for good 56-54 on a fastbreak dunk by Taneiko Robinson with 12:38 remaining in the game. The break was created by a Massanutten turnover — one of 23 on the night — and sparked a 10-2 run for the home team.

“They definitely picked up the defensive pressure,” said MMA coach Cedrick Broadhurst of the Patriots. “I think they realized that they could pressure some of our guys, and they started pressuring them, getting turnovers, getting easy baskets, and they wore us down. ... I think that’s what happened — they wore us down and kept the pressure up.”

On the offensive end, PHCC had a balanced scoring effort. Nick Goforth led the way with 14 points, while Robinson added 15 points, six rebounds and three steals. Sterling Martin and Ross Williams had 10 points each; Thomas Scott had nine and Darius Echols eight.
In the first half, Patrick Henry’s defense wasn’t as solid, and without the steals and long rebounds, the Patriots struggled to get their transition game going.

“We were giving up the open shot. We weren’t closing out quick enough. We weren’t in help-side defense. We didn’t communicate. We didn’t rotate. We didn’t do the little things to help us win the ball game,” said PHCC coach Kenny Wade of his team’s first-half effort. “I’m going to preach defense, defense, defense (in the coming practices), because that’s going to win the ball games for us. Offense, that’s gonna come. Defense is gonna lead to easy baskets.” MMA dressed only eight players for the game, however, and Wade decided he could take advantage of that in the second half.

“He recognized that they were getting tired,” said Echols. “They had, what, eight players on the team? So playing a 40-minute game, people get tired when it’s so few of them. So he (Wade) told us to just pick up the defensive pressure, and if somebody got tired on our team, we had reserves to come in and help them.”

MMA’s Chance Rucker was issued an intentional foul when Robinson was taken to the floor while attempting to dunk following a steal at mid-court. It marked the fifth foul for Rucker, who had to leave the game and finished with 10 points.

On the ensuing possession, Scott drove hard from the left corner and dropped in a finger roll to make it 72-60. Two possessions later, another MMA turnover had Williams and Robinson on the break with no defenders in sight. Williams lobbed the ball off the backboard and the 6-foot-7 Robinson caught it in mid-air for a two-handed cock-back dunk to delight the crowd.

The Patriots had control from there, and finished the game on a 12-2 run over the final 2:45. Robinson capped the contest with a steal and long pass to McGill, who stuffed it home to finish the contest. Afterward, Echols said the team could be impressive if it’s willing to concentrate on defensive excellence.

“We have so many people that can finish in our fast break. We have people who can get the ball to the people to finish on the fast break,” he said. “So I think we can have the best team in this conference if we lock down and play defense like we’re supposed to.” Allan Jones led MMA with 19 points, while Bryant Bechtel and William Mayles Jr. added 14 points each.

Notes: The Patriots started three players with local ties in McGill (Bassett High School), Goforth (BHS) and Echols (Carlisle School).

2009-2010 PHCC Men's Basketball Team
Regular Season begins on November 4th at home against Masanutten Military Academy

PHCC Men Hope to Keep it Going
Sunday, November 1, 2009
By JOHNNY BUCK - Bulletin Staff Writer

The men’s basketball team at Patrick Henry Community College exceeded expectations last year by winning a Region X title and ranking as high as No. 11 in the national polls. It was quite the debut for a program in its first season as a member of National Junior College Athletic Association, and it may be tough to recreate.

First-year head coach Kenny Wade was promoted from assistant after Chuck Moore left during the offseason, and only one player is back from last year’s team, which finished with a 24-6 record. Still, Wade isn’t trying to lower expectations for the Patriots. As he put it, “I don’t ever like to say ‘rebuilding.’ I like to say ‘reloading.’

“There were some high expectations from last year, and they’re gonna be placed on me this year, but with one guy returning, sometimes that can be good and sometimes that can be bad,” he continued. “I am a new coach, and I’m trying to lay the foundation of my program down with this set of guys.”

Bassett High School graduate Josh McGill is the only returning player from last season’s team, which was upset in the first round of the Region X Tournament after going unbeaten in regional play during the regular season. McGill averaged almost nine points and five rebounds per game last winter, meaning Wade needs to replace about 91 percent of the scoring and 87 percent of the rebounding from the 2008 team. He’s hoping an athletic, though slightly undersized, recruiting class will help in that regard.

“We’re still going to be a very up-tempo team,” he explained. “We’re going to try to push it as much as possible, but we’re going to try to stay in control.” Point guard Darius Echols will guide the Patriots’ attack this season. The 5-foot-10 Echols, who graduated from Carlisle School in May, plays much bigger than his size, according to Wade.

“He’s a special player. He’s got the heart of a lion,” said the head coach. “He’s going to be a really good leader for us. I expect him to contribute major minutes to this team and lead this basketball team from the point guard slot.” Nick Goforth is expected to start at shooting guard, where the 2008 Bassett High School graduate can be a perimeter scoring threat. “Nick is the type of kid who can shoot the lights out of the ball. He’s an exceptional shooter,” said Wade of the 6-foot freshman who enrolled at the school and began practicing with PHCC in January. “He’s really picked it up on the defensive end of the court, and he’s also going to surprise a lot of people with his ability to get to basket.”
McGill will man the combo guard/forward spot, and he’s already stepping into the leadership role that’s expected of him. “We can be good. If we work together and do what coach Wade says, we should do what we did last year and come out on top,” said McGill.

Sterling Martin and Taneiko Robinson will man the forward spots, and though both are somewhat undersized, Wade is hoping their versatility and athleticism will lead to mismatches as the Patriots push the tempo. Martin (6-6, Richmond) won the team’s 3-point contest earlier this month. He played for Meadowbrook High School last year. “Sterling can step out and knock that 3-pointer down consistently,” said Wade. “Right now, we’re working on developing him in the post to where he can have an inside-outside game.”

A season ago, Robinson (6-7, Culpeper) played shooting guard at Palomar College in San Diego, Calif., where he averaged 5.9 points and 5.6 assists per game before transferring to PHCC this fall. This year, he’ll be asked to battle in the post with the opposing center. Wade said his team will play primarily man-to-man defense and try to deny the ball’s entry to the post against bigger centers. “With our quickness, its’ going to be hard for him to get it in the post because of our style, and the way we’re going to play it,” said Wade. “If the guards can’t get it in the post, then (a big center is) ineffective.”

Like McGill, Robinson thinks this year’s Patriot team has the makings of a quality squad. “We’ve got plenty of athletes. We’ve got the makings to be a great team,” he said. “We could do a lot with this team as long as everybody buys into what the coaches are saying.”

This year’s roster has 14 players. Wade expected Ross Williams (6-3 guard, Bealton, Seward County CC), Devonte Davis (6-2 guard, Roberta, Ga., Saint Francis School) and Thomas Scott (6-4 forward, Newport News, Woodside High) to contribute off the bench immediately.

Marvin Wimbush will serve as the Patriots’ assistant. He has coaching experience with Dan River, Chatham and Gretna high schools, according to Wade. PHCC will tip off its season at home against Masanutten Military Academy at 7 p.m. Wednesday.