ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, January 21, 1996 TAG: 9601220115
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C-9 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: RAY COX STAFF WRITER
Short a starter, Patrick Henry High's boys' basketball team came up long in other areas Saturday.
The Patriots pulled together to make up for the loss of injured center Phillip Taylor and played one of their best games of the year. PH was stingy defensively and mostly crisp offensively in disposing of Coolidge of Washington, D.C. 67-54 in one of the games of the Crestar Classic at the Salem Civic Center.
Taylor sprained an ankle in Thursday's 66-64 loss to Heritage and did not dress for Saturday's engagement with the team ranked No. 16 in the metropolitan Washington area by the Washington Post. The Patriots responded with a balanced attack that featured four double-figure scorers. PH (7-7) jumped on top to start and never trailed.
The Colts (7-3) had athleticism and talent, but were out of sync all night.
``We hadn't played in 17 days because of the weather,'' Coolidge coach Keith Spinner said. ``It showed in the way we played.''
PH coach Woody Deans went to one of his trademark stratagems and used a gimmick defense that combined zone and man-to-man to stop Coolidges' 6-foot-5 Kenia Williams, who came in averaging 21 points per game. Williams was held to six points before he fouled out with 50 seconds left.
``We did a good job on him,'' Deans said.
The Patriots got a quiet 17 points from sophomore Boo Battle, who spent more time on the bench with foul difficulties than Deans would have liked. Senior Brooks Berry, a rangy 6-foot-5 forward, took charge when PH needed scoring or work on the backboards. Berry finished with 15 points and a career-high 16 rebounds.
``I had to step it up on the boards because Phillip wasn't in there,'' Berry said. ``And I also had to guard a taller player [6-4 Jerry Porter] inside than I usually do.''
Berry employed a number of different shots to score his points.
``My jump shot wasn't falling so I had to go with short jumpers and layups,'' he said.
Coolidge was led by Marc Ferguson with 19 points. Ferguson went 9-for-16 from the stripe and the team 14-for-23 to outscore the Patriots (7-for-20) in free throw shooting.
Berry, who went 0-for-3, was one of the culprits.
``I don't know,'' he said. ``I usually shoot 80 percent. Blame it on the civic center.''
PH was getting enough of the other sorts of shots it wanted to make up for the shortcomings at the line. The Patriots had 29 field goals with Berry and Ronnie Kasey each contributing a 3-pointer. Coolidge was held to 18 field goals, four of those 3's.
Malik Shareef had 11 points for Patrick Henry and scored the team's last four points of the half as it went up 28-18 at the break. Colby Leftwich contributed 10 points and Kasey seven more.
Coolidge didn't take a lot of time with shot selection in the second half, which was one of the reasons that the Colts were as many as 20 points down.
``When you get behind as far as we did, we wanted to pick up the tempo at both ends of the floor and put some pressure on them,'' Spinner said. ``But we couldn't do it.''
NOTE: Please see microfilm for scores.
LENGTH: Medium: 65 linesby CNB