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Goose Creek teams rolling into playoffs

Published Wednesday, February 17, 2010 9:07 AM

By Rob Gantt
The Gazette

Goose Creek’s basketball teams finished off the regular season strong Monday, sweeping Wando to enter the Class AAAA playoffs with winning streaks intact.

The Lady Gators pulled away in the second half for a 73-47 victory while the boys needed a little longer to get the Warriors under control, piecing together a 60-49 win.

It was the 13th straight win for the Lady Gators (22-1) and 11th straight for the Goose Creek boys (20-3).

The Lady Gators were set to open the playoffs with West Florence on Tuesday.

“The girls know they’ve got to play at a high level,” said Lady Gators coach Tim Baldwin, whose team advanced to the Lower State finals last season.

Close games have been the exception rather than the rule for Baldwin’s team, which concerns the coach because maybe things have come too easy. They’ve been involved in just one game decided by single digits since Christmas, a 52-47 win over West Ashley.

“This is the playoffs and we’re going to have to win some close games,” he said. “We’re going to have to win a four- or five-point game. We haven’t had to execute a full gameplan in a while. We’ve just been doing what we do and that’s been plenty. Now, we’ve got to make sure we’re still doing what we do but we’ve got to focus on taking away what the other team does.”

Against Wando, Aleighsa Welch had 22 points and D’Andra Wright chipped in 15 points. Ashley Fields added 13 points. N’Dea Bryant scored nine.

The Lady Gators’ second opponent in the playoffs Friday would be either Summerville or the second-place team from Region 5-AAAA.

The Goose Creek’s boys have definitely had to stave off more opponents late than the Lady Gators. Against Wando, the game was tied late in the third quarter before Brad Dobbels’ team hit 15 free throws in the fourth quarter to help itself pull away.

“We did a good job playing strong with the ball in the fourth quarter of a fairly physical game,” Dobbels said.

Back on Jan. 29, the Gators got two free throws from sophomore forward Raemond Robinson in the closing seconds to slip by Berkeley 60-59. A few other teams have challenged the defending Class AAAA champions down to the final eight minutes.

But Dobbels’ team has been able to win them all since Christmas break ended.

“We can’t make the same mistakes we’ve been making,” said leading scorer Devontae Wright, who scored 21 points against Wando. “We’ve got to stick together as a team and make the plays.”

The Gators open the playoffs Wednesday night at home against South Florence and would host either Summerville or the second-place team from Region 5 in the second round Saturday.

As for worries of defending the championship, Dobbels said his team is simply playing one side of the floor at a time and not looking past the half-court line until they’ve done what they need to do on whatever side of the court they’re on.

“We don’t worry about who or where we’re playing,” he said. “We just try to do what we do and play as hard as we can.”

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