12/3/14 • By Kyle Cummings / kcummings@columbustelegram.com
COLUMBUS -- Central head men's basketball coach Jerry Drymon has a philosophy: find your bread and butter and stick with it.
"One of the things you have to be able to do is figure out what you can be good at and just buckle down and do it," Central head coach Jerry Drymon said.
Normally for the Central Community College men's basketball team, that would be its defense.
In Wednesday's case, however, it was the Raider offense that stepped up, helping Central run away with an 83-61 victory over the York JV at the Raider Fieldhouse.
Still, that didn't keep Drymon from wanting more.
"It feels good, but the hardest part of this as a coach is you still look at the things you didn't do right," he said. "You still want to see those improvements. One of the dangers of this is we've played such a hard schedule, sometimes you don't stay elevated against JV teams and I thought we came out in the first half, kind of got going a little bit offensively and did some really good things on the offensive end that we had kind of struggled with the past few games."
The Raiders brushed off a 5-0 York JV lead to eventually tie the game at 8-all.
Then they never looked back.
"The first half I thought we played real well," Drymon said. "We moved the ball, we had a lot of success the first half. We had a lot of good shots through the whole game. I told the team today, 'A good offense is about getting good shots.' Then you have to make them of course, but the design of an offense is to get good shots and I thought we did a pretty good job with that.
A lot of those good shots were set up by Central's defensive stands.
The York JV continued to hang around early in the first half, pushing within four points several times.
Central held off its final push to break within four points with a steal, which led to a fast break David Joachim layup.
Then, the Raiders took full control after Daniel Maganda's defensive board helped the Raiders drive the floor on a transitional Shawn Robinson bucket. York called a timeout as Central held a 10-point lead a little more than midway through the first half.
"Defensively, we kind of made a commitment to playing the zone and we kind of have seen some progress starting to happen because of that," Drymon said.
Central went on to take a halftime lead of 46-25 -- its biggest lead in the season at that point.
"I told them at halftime, 'We have to learn and develop that killer instinct to put teams away,'" Drymon said. "In the old days a 20-point game was over. In today's game you see swings constantly. We had to come out and not let them make a run on us right away and I thought we did a good job of that."
The Raiders continued to stay one step ahead of the Panthers, eventually building a 69-47 lead in the second half.
York would only push with 19 points just at the beginning of the second half, thanks to Central's hot shooting led by Thomas Johnson, who had 23 points and eight rebounds.
"I thought the best part of (Johnson's) game was he was rebounding the ball," Drymon said. "He was active on the offensive boards and we need that. We're a team that struggles rebounding the ball. I thought his activity on the defensive end rebounding the ball was really critical to our success and that's the first game we out rebounded an opponent and he's a big part of that."
Wednesday's win was a long time coming for the Central, which was on a 12-game losing streak coming into the contest.
The young Central squad, which was hampered by injuries, struggled early in the season with a tough schedule.
Finally, Central got healthy, found a little confidence and has started to mold. Drymon said he saw that all click during Monday's 83-76 loss to McCook Community College.
"I look at Monday night against McCook, we played really well," he said. "We didn't win that one, but we played well and came into this game with a little bit of momentum. Hopefully this will help us through the next three games."
Central travels to Beatrice to play the Doane JV Friday.
Wednesday at the Raider Fieldhouse
York JV 25 36 - 61
Central (2-12) 46 37 - 83
* YORK JV (field goals-free throws-fouls-points) - Marquis Jackson 7-4-5-2-22, Marcus Morgan 1-0-0-2-3, Cody Baack 1-0-0-3-3, AJ Scheerer-Hamm 1-0-0-0-2, Darreon Collins 0-1-2-3-1, Nate Newton 7-7-9-1-24, John Jones 3-0-2-4-6. Totals: 20-12-18-15-61.
* CENTRAL - Shawn Robinson 5-5-6-3-15, Warol Gatdit 1-0-0-3-15, Matthew McLeod 5-1-4-2-11, Bryant Kelly 4-0-0-1-8, Thomas Johnson 9-0-0-1-23, Connor Long 2-0-0-0-4, David Joachim 4-0-0-3-8, Tanner Fuelberth 2-0-0-3-6, Nietzche Jeantinor 1-4-6-1-6. Totals 33-10-16-17-83.
* 3-point field goals - York JV 9 (Jackson 4, Newton 3, Morgan, Baack), Central 7 (Johnson 5, Fuelberth 2).