Black History recap

1/31/2009

The inaugural Rameybasketball.com St. Louis vs Chicago Black History Shootout took place this past Saturday, January 31st at Vashon High School. The historic Vashon High School showcased four great high school games featuring local schools: Soldan, Vashon, Career Academy, and Maplewood against their Chi-town rivals: Harper, Von Steubon, Brooks College Prep, and Hales Franciscan. A packed house witness four highly contested games and some great individual performances in an amazing atmosphere.

We here at Rameybasketball.com would like to thank the many fans and people who supported this event.

In the opening game the Soldan Tigers a very young and up and coming area team coached by Justin Tatum took on a very good Harper team that is now 13-4 on the year.

Soldan played a good first half in building 30-29 lead at the break. Freshman

Partice Sanders (pictured) scored 9 of his team high 12 points in the first half

in helping the Tigers. The third quarter proved to be critical for the Tigers as

Harper turned up the pressure and forced several turnovers in outscoring the

Tigers by 10 in the quarter to build a 9 point lead going into the fourth quarter.

The Cardinals would not look back from their as they posted an impressive

66-58 victory. Leading the way was 6’3 senior Jimmie Halloway with 15 points and 6’2 junior Shauntell Jackson with 14 points for coach Narvel Newson and Harper.

In the events second game host Vashon took on a young and dangerous Von Steubon team that jumped out the gate on the Wolverines. The Panthers led after the first quarter 16-2 and at the half 28-11 in a first half that the Wolverines committed several turnovers. Vashon did however come out of the locker room and made a game of it and cut down on costly unforced errors to climb back into the game while outscoring the Panthers 17-6 in the

third period. Trailing by 4 with the ball and less than two minutes to play

Vashon missed an open three pointer and missed a put back and the

Panthers would convert free throws and an open layup to secure a hard

fought 46-39 victory. The Wolverines showed a lot of character in the

second half and wouldn’t quit and was led by 6’1 junior Saladin Smith

(pictured) 12 points and got a strong game off the bench from 5’11 junior

Devante Jones with 10. The Panthers were led by 5’10 senior guard &

5’10 junior Jermaine Hiler 12 points but it was the damage from 6’6 juniors Floyd Campbell and Jamal Dantzler on the boards that helped head coach Vince Carter’s team secure the victory.

In the events third game the Miller Career Academy Phoenix took on an extremely talented Chicago Brooks College Prep team coach by Chris Head. In a defensively played first half that saw limited made shots the Eagles led 16-11 at the break but the second

half would prove to be different as the Eagles built a 15 point lead in the

fourth quarter to see the Phoenix chip away and ride the back of 6’5

Missouri State signee (pictured) Jerome Jones to tie the game up at 51-51

with a minute to go in the fourth quarter. The Phoenix had the ball with 10.2

seconds left after a timeout and missed a shot and left close to 4 seconds

on the clock as Brooks called a timeout. 5’10 super sophomore guard

  George Marshall (pictured) raced down court to convert a short runner off

  the back board as the buzzer sounded to help the Eagles hold on and post

  a 53-51. Jones led the Phoenix with a game high 28 points including 17 in

  the fourth quarter and 9 straight in a span of 2 minutes including fanatic

  baseline dunk over a defender and 2 big three pointers. The smooth and

  quick Marshall led Brooks with 17 points including the game winner and

  6’2 sophomore Justin Rabb chipped in with 12 points. Brooks is a very talented team that is young and primed to be state contenders the next 2 years. They feature 13 underclassman and 7 sophomores that all play significant roles. The 6’7 twins Keith and Kevin Gray are primed to be high major players before graduation as is Marshall. Credit to Career Academy head coach Michael Brown and his Phoenix team for fighting to the end and playing their hearts out in a highly contested game.

In the featured game of the day the defending Class 3A State Champion Maplewood Blue Devils took on Midwest powerhouse Chicago Hales Franciscan. The Spartans came out looking very good in building a 10-2 lead in the games first 4 minutes in hopes of helping the Chi-town get the sweep of the four game serious. However head coach Corey Frazier and all state and Mr. Basketball front runner Bryant Allen (pictured) had other

ideas as they chipped the lead down to 3 after the first period. The

Blue Devils would then use their pressure defense; fast paced

offense and the hot shooting of Minnesota commit Bryant Allen to

build a 39-33 halftime lead. Allen would score 18 of his game high

24 points in the first half. Maplewood would go onto produce a 72-58

victory in a game that was much closer than the final score showed

and was very hard fought by both teams. This game had an electic feel and saw stellar play after stellar play. Both teams played very hungry and the frenzy crowd made the atmosphere great. 5’11 junior guard Patrick Miller led Hales with 16 points with 13 coming in the second half.

If you have not seen Maplewood play, trust me when I say that they are worth the price of admission. 5’11 junior Bryant Hobbs scored 17 points and senior Les Williams added 11 points.