Greg Hollis | [email protected]
NEWBERRY — Newberry High School varsity boys’ basketball team hosted the Bennie Bennet Classic from Dec. 27-30 and unfortunately took their third loss of the season in the second day of the holiday tournament. The Bulldogs(6-3) fell 83-65 to Camden(8-2) on Monday, Dec. 29.
Newberry cruised to a win against American Leadership Academy on the opening day for the tournament, but had trouble against a scrappy Camden team in day two.
Camden started the game off on a 6-1 run to jump out to an early lead, but the home team Bulldogs stormed back on a 9-4 run to tie the game at 10-10. The visiting Camden Bulldogs took control of the game and built up another lead. They closed the quarter out on 14-6 run and held a 24-16 lead at the end of the first quarter.
The second quarter started off with Camden building themselves a double digit lead and getting their biggest lead of the game, 35-20. Newberry was forced to call a timeout and regroup.
It was just what the doctor ordered because the home team Newberry Bulldogs put together another impressive run led by their full court defensive pressure and senior guard Jason Dunbar. He finished the first half with 12 points and had eight in the second quarter. He also added two steals and an impressive breakaway dunk at the buzzer to cut into the deficit.
Newberry trailed 41-40 at halftime.
The third quarter opened with Newberry got their first lead of the game since they lead 1-0 in the opening minute of the game.
Le’Matthis ‘Tank’ Whitener began to make his presence felt in the third quarter for Newberry. He provided a great spark off the bench and put Camden’s big men in foul trouble. Unfortunately, Newberry couldn’t overcome the sloppy turnovers and couldn’t keep the Camden guards out of the lane, where they were driving and kicking it back out to open shooters.
Newberry still trailed 65-55 going into the fourth quarter. The final quarter was a disaster for Newberry and Camden took complete control of the game. Dunbar was the only one scoring consistently for the home team and Camden kept knocking down shots and forcing turnovers with their defensive pressure.
Dunbar finished with a team-high of 20 points and had three steals. Whitener scored in double figures as well, but it wasn’t enough to overcome Camden.
Reach Greg Hollis @ 803-768-3119 or on X @TheNBOnews