COLLEGE PARK — The Pocomoke Warriors are doing something that very few high school basketball teams are able to do over the course of the season.
They have developed a style of play which works for them and have decided to stick to it through thick-and-thin, making their opponent prove that they can stop it before scrapping the style for another option.
On Friday, there was no stopping the Warriors giving the Warriors no need to stop they’re style as they ran the court with flare, taking down Clear Spring 1A semifinals by a score of 86-65.
The Warriors had perfected a style of scoring quick baskets in transition using their defense to come up with steals giving them easy open lay-ups to help build a lead. Today was no different for Pocomoke head coach Derrick Fooks’ troops.
Even with a disproportionate size advantage that favored Clear Spring, the Warriors put their potent style to work early, scoring 10 of their first 13 points on the fast break with six of those points coming off of Blazers turnovers.
For Forks, it was exactly what he and his captains wanted to do from the opening tip.
“We’ve been doing that all year. If you look at our stats, if you look at our team, we like to get off to a quick start and our quick starts start on defense,” said Fooks, who’s Warriors made it back to their first state final since 2009. “The only way we’re gonna win with the height disadvantage is to put pressure on people.”
If it wasn’t obvious watching the game, as the Warriors took a 14 point lead after the end of the first quarter, it was obvious listening to the Warriors talk after the game about how the team as a whole had bought into the style of play.
“Our defense was very aggressive coming in,” said Fooks. “My captains just stepped in. They told the underclassmen, ‘Ok, this is what is going to happen this year,’ and we just kept the foot on the gas.”
The Warriors would do just that as they continued to push the Blazers throughout the first half and throughout the course of a game using a strong defense to give themselves easy buckets off of turnovers. Overall, the Warriors forced 31 turnovers by the Blazers and forced four of the five Blazers starters to cough up the ball more than four times.
Clear Spring, to their credit, could have backed down with the Warriors controlling a double digit lead for the majority of the game, but instead kept pounding away at the Warriors with their senior guard Spencer Schultz leading the way with a tremendous performance, putting up 34 points and 16 rebounds.
“I thought once we got settled in during the second, third, and fourth quarters,” said Clear Spring head coach John Hutzell who led the Blazers to their first ever trip to the boys basketball state semifinals in school history. “We represented our town, our community, and our families very well.”
The size advantage was something that Clear Spring noticed early on leading him to be more aggressive going to the basket, which paid dividends with Schultz scoring 19 of his points from the charity stripe.
“I think this game I felt more of a need to get inside,” said Schultz. “I think it showed on my free throw attempts by getting fouled. I usually try to play more of an outside game but I think the size difference was why I tried to get inside.”
Even with Schultz putting on a show-stopping performance it didn’t bug Pocomoke. After amassing 19 and 23 point leads at the end of the second and third quarters respectively the Blazers had to foul to slow down Pocomoke to give them a shot. That is where the Blazers’ chances ended as the Warriors would make 27 of 355 free throws to seal the win.
As for the style that the Warriors play, it seems to be a matter of proving to everyone that their devastating loss in the playoffs last year was a fluke.
“Last year left a bad taste in our mouth,” said Fooks. “We wanted to get back to this stage.”
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