Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, January 23, 1994 TAG: 9401230161
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C-11 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: RAY COX STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Down two starters, Patrick Henry came from behind, holding Princeton, W.Va., to three field goals in the last 4 minutes, 58 seconds Saturday and made off with a 77-67 victory in the second game of the Crestar Roundball Classic at the Salem Civic Center.
Patriots center Vince McGhee knocked out two teeth in a sledding mishap on ice this week, and Shannon Taylor was off to Syracuse University for a football recruiting trip, which had PH coach Woody Deans fuming at Syracuse.
But the real smoke came from junior forward Chris Combs, who had a career-high 30 points to go with 13 rebounds.
"When I found out Shannon and Vince weren't going to be with us, I thought I'd better step it up quite a bit," Combs said.
Others had similar thoughts. Point guard Moe Preston scored 16 points and played a level-headed floor game, and Eugene Cook came off the bench to battle the taller Tigers for 15 points and 10 rebounds.
That's not to mention the tag team of Quinton Twine, Jeff Eeningburg and C.J. Walker, who dogged Princeton ace Herman Brown in a diamond-and-one defense, in which one defender goes man-to-man on a targeted player and the rest play zone.
The lean and shifty Brown scored 27 points, including six 3-pointers, but he had only three points as PH was taking over in the last five minutes.
"They did well with the diamond-and-one," said Tigers coach Robert Wray, who played his high school ball at Franklin County. "We just didn't shoot well."
Princeton (3-5), which was coming off Friday's 84-74 loss to Woodrow Wilson of Beckley, the No. 1 team in West Virginia, shot 45.7 percent (27-of-59) for the game but made only three of its last 12. PH, meanwhile, was going on a 17-7 run after tying the score 60-60 on David Barker's jumper with 4:20 left.
PH (7-3) trailed by 11 points early before matters tightened in the second half. There were four ties and seven lead changes before PH scored on eight of nine possessions to take control.
by CNB