Noles dunk Tigers
Southeast spoils Fowler's coaching debut in season-opener
After a couple Palmetto High defenders forced Southeast guard Ryan Huggins into a turnover, Noles coach Elliot Washington sat at the end on the bench. All Washington had to do was swap out his silk neck tie for a Southeast white uniform and make his way onto the court.
But he didn't sit on the end of the bench in frustration because he wanted to play. Washington wanted Huggins to clean up his play. The Noles were thumping the Tigers by a large margin midway through the second quarter in a game in which Southeast never trailed. The Noles defeated Palmetto 56-35 in the season-opener for both teams at Buzz Narbut Gym on Monday night.
"I thought it was a sloppy play," Washington said. "I thought we would have played a lot better, and I felt a lot of things that got out of hand was a lack of mental focus."
The Noles opened the game on a 7-0 run, and Palmetto never got closer than 12 points. Yet the game was marred by turnovers. The Tigers (0-1) committed 29 turnovers, while Southeast (1-0) had 18.
Junior swingman John Ethridge led the Noles with 19 points, going 5 of 9 from behind the arc.
"Coach (Washington) always tells me to shoot with confidence," Ethridge said. "Every shot I took I felt I could make, and I kept shooting."
For Southeast, freshman guard Adrion Richard and sophomore Devon Bacon chipped in with 10 points apiece.
Palmetto's loss spoiled the coaching debut of Wilmore Fowler. Fowler replaced Kenny Ansbro, who coached the Tigers the past seven seasons. Fowler, a 1977 Tigers graduate and a former All-America player, helped Palmetto reach the state semifinals in 1976.
"We got to play harder," Fowler said. "Hopefully, this game will show them something. When we got pressured, we didn't run any offense. It was all helter-skelter out there. This was hard, but you got to take the wins with the losses."
The Tigers were without six players and possibly four starters, who are still playing football for Palmetto, which travels to Booker for Friday's Class 3A-Region 3 semifinals.
The Tigers offense was inept going 11 of 56 from the field (20 percent), scoring only 23 points in the second half.
Treymayne Williamson and Carlton Randall lead Palmetto in scoring with nine points each.
"It could have been a lot better," Fowler said. "I was worried about how the guys were going to play. We just got to get mentally focused."