The Reagan Raiders don't have a superstar player to hang their hat on, but they have plenty of very good ones.
And it took a collaborative effort for the Raiders to win their first ever title in the Frank Spencer Holiday Classic when they took out Winston-Salem Prep 53-43 at Joel Coliseum.
William Peay finished with 20 points and won the tournament MVP award, but it was the team defense that the Raiders displayed against the taller and more athletic Phoenix that won the title.
"The thing is I am so proud of my guys," Coach Howard West said. "We have won a lot of games the last few years, but we have never won anything. Now, we have the Frank Spencer championship, and that's something these seniors can take away with them."
The Raiders played their normal man-to-man defense against the towering Phoenix, but they cranked up their intensity enough in the third quarter to build a 39-32 lead and didn't let up until the victory was secured.
Anthony Thomas (20 points) and Jamal McNeil (15 points) did their usual damage for Prep, but the rest of the players combined for eight points. And that wasn't lost on Coach Andre Gould of Prep afterward when he was asked what happened.
"Individuals, that's the bottom line," Gould said. "They played better team basketball then we did. I thought we played good defense, but again, when you are out there trying to play by yourself, instead of trying to rely on teammates, you are not going to beat a team like that."
The Raiders did all the things they needed to do well, especially hanging with Prep on the boards. Prep outrebounded Reagan, but only 31 to 27, and Reagan more than made up for that difference by making 26 of 30 free-throw attempts, with Peay, a 5-9 senior point guard, going 8 of 10.
It was two free throws from Peay two minutes into the second half that gave the Raiders the lead for good at 22-21, and it started a 7-0 run that finished with a Ryan Brubaker 3-pointer that gave Reagan a 27-21 lead.
Prep cut the lead to four on a 3-pointer from Thomas, but Reagan answered by scoring on five of six possessions -- which included six points from the free-throw line -- to build a 39-28 lead.
"We talked about it at halftime and Coach West said we had to put more energy into defense," Peay said. "And if we did our offense would come. So that's what we concentrated on and that's what pushed us over the edge and gave us that lead, and we took it home.
"We work hard. That's what we do. Every day in practice we just go at it."
West said he told his team to compete for every rebound, loose ball, and to make sure his players stayed tight on Prep's taller shooters on defense. He said that the key to the third-quarter spurt was extending the man-to-man defense and forcing Prep's guards to run a little more.
"Other than that it was just good hard basketball," West said. "We had the floor spread on them a little on our offense and we had some angles. Once we got those, we took the ball to the basket and that's where the fouls came from.
"We stayed after them, and we were up in them, up in them hard. If we lay off of them they will shoot the ball over the top of us. They have some really nice players and I think Andre has done a great job with those guys. They play well together they just had a bad night shooting."
The loss snapped a 12-game winning streak for Prep, and Gould said he hoped that something positive would come out of it.
"Hopefully they change the attitude, get back in tune," he said.
"Like I told them, we are a band of brothers, and we can't be a band if we don't win. You can't come out with one guy shooting by himself and beat anybody."
Thomas, McNeil and Brubaker were named to the all-tournament team along with Tab Hamilton of West Forsyth and Trey Ervin of Mount Tabor.
Reagan 9 10 20 14 53
W-S Prep 11 10 11 11 43
Reagan (8-2): Peay 20, Glenn 2, McKnight 4, Brubaker 12, Dozier 4, Gronewaller 2, Hines 9
W-S Prep (12-3): Noble 3, McMillian 2, Thomas 20, McClinton 3, McNeil 15
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