By Mike London
mike.london@salisburypost.com

SALISBURY — No one wanted to talk about points, rebounds, assists — or even dunks —  after Catawba’s men’s basketball team beat Mars Hill, 83-68, on Saturday afternoon.

But everyone wanted to talk about deflections following the South Atlantic Conference win.

“Thirty-six deflections,” said John McRae, a thin but smooth and poised 6-foot-6 freshman from Seat Pleasant, Md. “Defense was what we did best day.”

Those 36 deflections contributed mightily to Catawba’s 22 fast-break points and Catawba’s 50-24 edge on points in the paint. Mars Hill (2-15, 0-10) turned it over 29 times. Many of those turnovers started with a deflection by a long-armed Indian defender.

Catawba coach Rob Perron also wanted to talk deflections. Actually, his first 50 or so words were about deflections.

“We’ve put that deflection stat up there as one of the stats we need to win, along with rebounding, shooting percentage, turnovers and transition points,” Perron said. “The deflection stat might be the most important one of all for us because we’re 5-0 when we get 20 or more deflections. The guys are buying into that stat. They come to the bench asking if we saw that deflection they just got. They want to make sure it got recorded.”

Catawba is making a transition to youth that has been painful to watch, at times. Growing pains sting. Youth generally loses and experience usually wins, and that process is hard to rush. But through all those early losses when Catawba had to throw freshmen in the fire because veterans were injured, Perron kept teaching and stayed positive. Now it appears Catawba may harvest rewards from a crop of youngsters who got better. Senior Jerrin Morrison led the Indians with 17 points on Saturday, but freshmen McRae, Carter Phillips, T.J. Jeffers, 6-7 .J. Johnson and 6-8 Tae Cannon had positive games.

“We come from winning high school programs, and we came expecting to play,” said McRae, who had three nice assists. “We’re learning to play together. Whoever was open shot the ball today and no one had to force shots.”

Phillips scored 11 points and shot 4-for-4 on 2-pointers. He’s a solid rebounder and driver. He showed again Saturday that he refuses to be labeled as a 3-point shooter.

“Guys were hurt and freshmen had to step in and play a lot of minutes,” Phillips said. “But with that experience came confidence. I felt pretty confident today. We’re starting to see how good we can be when we play as a team.”

Catawba settled for a 34-26 halftime lead.

“We did a lot of things right, we got the ball in the paint a lot, but we missed six layups,” Perron said. “We shaped that up in the second half.”

McRae’s flying dunk early in the third quarter put Catawba ahead, 36-26. Jeremy McLaughlin powered in a couple of layups to put Catawba ahead, 40-27.

Mars Hill, led by guard Bennett Wilson (17 points) made its last stand at that point, clawing back to a 43-35 deficit on Vernon Jackson’s  layup with 16:07 remaining.

But Jordan Barber turned a steal into two points to get Catawba’s lead back to 10. Then Jeffers made the pass to an open Phillips for the 3-pointer that made it 48-35. Malik Constantine hit a free throw before Carter nailed another jumper for 51-35 lead with 12:49 left.

Catawba led by double digits the rest of the way.

“We were in some foul trouble, four guys with three fouls early in the second half, but we stayed composed,” Perron said. “We’re growing up. We only had two in double figures today, but we scored 83. That means a lot of  guys helped out.”

Catawba goes to Newberry on Wednesday.

 

Catawba 83, Mars Hill 68

MARS HILL (68)— Wilson 17, Gilyard 14, Van-Rijn 9, Jackson 8, Hartfield 6, Daniel 5, Watkins 3, Reeves 3, Hylton 3, Elkins.

CATAWBA (83) —Morrison 17, Phillips 11, Johnson 9, Constantine 9, McRae 9, McLaughlin 8, Barber 6, Cannon 4, Robinson 4,  Childress 3, Jeffers 3, Lentz.

Mars Hill     26     42   —68

Catawba       34    49   — 83