City of Palms Classic Day 3 Scores

Game 1 - Pace (FL) vs. Gainesville (FL) 72 to 65

Game 2 - American Heritage (FL) vs. Bishop Verot (FL) 63 to 59

Game 3 - St. Benedict’s (NJ) vs. Kinston (NC) 72 to 44

Game 4 - Hales Franciscan (IL) vs. Charlotte (FL) 81 to 53

Game 5 - Helen Cox (LA) vs. New Hope (MS) 75 to 62

Game 6 - Chester (PA) vs. Scott County (KY) 83 to 69

Game 7 - Holy Cross (NY) vs. Taft (CA) 66 to 59

City of Palms Classic Day 2 New Hope, MS vs. American Heritage, FL

   

Game 4 - New Hope (MS) vs. American Heritage (FL) - 82 to 78 (OT)

This game was by far the best game of the tournament so far the teams fought back and forth to gain control of a lead. This game also featured some elite players in Eloy Vargas (Florida) and Kenny Boynton (2009) from American Heritage. There were two players for New Hope that real made a name for themselves we huge performances, Rashanti Harris and Dale Hughes.

Rashanti Harris put on the performance of the tournament so far as he completely dominated on the inside; he finished the game with 32 points on 11-20 shooting and 9-10 from the line along with 25 rebounds. He was a complete beast on both ends of the floor and he is the type of player that doesn’t try and do things that aren’t his strong points in his game. He is likely a JUCO kid b/c of qualifying but he is a legit top 50 player in the country.

Dale Hughes finished with 34 points on 9-26 shooting and 5-13 from behind the arc along with 6 rebounds.

The standouts for American Heritage were Eloy Vargas who showed why he is a top 20 player in the country with an excellent array of moves in the post for easy buckets to go along with his defensive presence and rebounding. He finished the game with 21 points on 7-15 shooting, 16 rebounds and 3 blocks. Kenny Boynton did not get a chance to showcase all of his abilities b/c of foul trouble. He was also facing a box and 1 defense; he finished with 13 points on 5-17 shooting and 3-9 from behind the arc along with 3 rebounds. I am expecting a better showing from him on day 3 it’s just too hard to contain a prolific scorer like him to games in a row.

When Boynton fouled out it left the scoring to Vargas and the ultra quick Raymond Taylor who the fastest player I have seen in the nation. He finished with 24 points on 9-25 shooting and 4-9 from behind the arc along with 5 assists and 6 steals. Everton Chin also pitched in 15 points for American Heritage. This was a great game to witness.

City of Palms Classic Day 2 Taft, CA vs. Charlotte, FL

   

Game 3 - Taft (CA) vs. Charlotte (FL) - 77 to 40

This game was a over by the end of the 1^st quarter Taft (CA) came out on fire and was basically able to get whatever they wanted against Charlotte (FL).

The score at the half was 49 to 19 with the top scorers being Bryce Smith (Taft) with 12 points and Justin Hawkins (Taft) with 10 points. Charlotte (FL) top scorers in the half were Chris Stephenson with 9 points and Dago Pena with 6 points.

Taft was able to force 15 turnovers in the 1^st half which helped lead to the huge deficit at the half. The 2^nd half started just like the 1^st Taft came out running outscoring Charlotte 15 to 3 in the 3^rd quarter.

Taft had a balanced attack on offense with 4 players in double figures. Leading the way was Justin Hawkins with 20 points and 5 rebounds, Bryce Smith 13 points and 6 rebounds, (UNC) signee Larry Drew finished with 12 points, 5 steals and 2 assists and Terran Carter totaled 11 points and 8 rebounds.

The Charlotte team didn’t get much production from anyone other than Stephenson and Pena who combined to score 32 out of the teams 40 points.

Dago Pena scored 11 in the 2^nd half to finish with 20 points and 6 rebounds and Chris Stephenson was held to just 3 points in the 2^nd half totaling 12 points for the game.

City of Palms Classic Day 2 Holy Cross, NY vs. Pace, FL

   

Game 2 - Pace (FL) vs. Holy Cross (NY) - 81 to 62

In this game you had a matchup of two elite players in Ray Shipman of Pace and Sylven Landesberg of Holy Cross.

Ray Shipman came out on a mission hitting his first two 3 pointers and finished the half with 13 points. Sylven Landesberg did most of his damage in the half on drives to the basket and finished with 9 points.

The game was very close through the 1^st half with each team taking the lead. In the 2^nd half Holy Cross just seemed to come up with all of the loose balls and hit four 3 pointers, along with forcing 9 turnovers.

This game also proved to be more than a 2 man show with players from each team stepping up.

Some players that caught my eye were Blaise French (HC) finished with 14 points on 5-7 shooting and 5 assists, Kayvon Roberts (HC) finished with 18 points on 6-12 shooting, 4 assists and 4 rebounds, Ernest Freeman (HC) finished with 11 points on 4-7 shooting and 6 rebounds.

Rakeem Buckles (Pace) finished with 9 points on 4-8 shooting and 6 rebounds, Terrance Saintil (Pace) finished with 8 points and 4 rebounds, Darius Perkins (Pace) class of 2011 came in and played a solid game off the bench scoring 8 points on 3-5 shooting and 2-2 from 3 point land definitely a player to keep an eye on.

The two standouts each lived up to their billing with Landesberg (HC) totaling 26 points on 10-21 shooting and 11 rebounds and Shipman (Pace) totaling 25 points on 8-18 shooting and 3-6 from behind the arc, he also added 4 rebounds.

City of Palms Classic Day 2 Dunbar, FL vs. John Carroll, MD

   

Game 1 - Dunbar (FL) vs. John Carroll (MD) - 60 to 55

This game was a very close match up the entire game, each team fought back from little runs made by each school.

In the end Dunbar’s athletes were just too much for John Carroll to defeat. Dunbar was able to force John Carroll into 21 turnovers which led to easy fast break buckets.

The standout players for Dunbar were David Paulk (2010) who finished with a game high 22 points on 9-14 shooting including 3-5 from 3 point land along with 6 rebounds. Melvin German also had a solid game for Dunbar finishing with 12 points and 9 rebounds.

A player that I thought would have a solid performance after his day 1 performance never really showed up in this game, Jeffery Evans finished with 2 points and 2 rebounds also fouled out.

John Carroll was led again by their standout Junior Isaiah Philmore who had another great game in the defeat finishing with 20 points and 7 rebounds. He played solid on both ends of the court basically shutting down Dunbar on the inside and scored mostly on the inside going 6-9 shooting along with 8-14 from the line.

He will surely see an increase in his recruitment after a nice showing at this event.

Josh Wiegand had another solid game finishing with game high 10 boards to go along with 10 points. He is not the most skilled player on the offensive end but sure does a good job on the boards.

City of Palms Classic Day 1 St. Benedicts, NJ vs. Gainsville, FL

  

Game 5 - St. Benedict’s (NJ) vs. Gainesville (FL) - 87 to 32

St. Benedict’s comes into this tournament the new # 1 team in the country.

They proved that the ranking was well deserved as they completely dominated this game from start to finish.

St. Benedict’s used their size to control both ends of the floor. Gainesville did not have an answer for the combo of Samardo Samuels and Greg Echenique who each scored with ease.

Samardo and Greg each had big games with Samardo finishing with 23 points and 6 rebounds in 19 minutes, Greg finished with 16 points and 12 rebounds respectively.

Tamir Jackson had a solid game finishing with 11 points and 4 assists.

Basically it looks like St. Benedict’s is the team to beat for the crown at the City of Palms Classic after day one.