Mississippi Delta Community College’s summer basketball showcase offered a glimpse of the best new division rivalry in the MAIS on Wednesday.
Delta Streets Academy, which is making the move from Class 1A to 3A next season, raced out to a 22-11 halftime lead against future District 3 foe Greenville Christian School.
But in their third game of the day, the Lions ran out of gas during the fourth quarter as D.J. Smith and the Saints rallied for a 46-39 win.
“We can definitely build on that, because we’re going to see them a lot next year,” DSA head coach Justin Childs said. “If we want to win state and they want to win state, we would have to play five times. If you include Overall, it’s six times.”
Rising junior Javeon Smith knocked down a pair of 3-pointers to start the game, helping DSA jump ahead 9-4 after one quarter of action. In the second frame, rising senior J.T. Lawrence found his rhythm, dazzling Greenville Christian’s defense with a flurry of moves that put the Lions ahead by double digits.
“I liked their intensity when they first came out,” D.J. Smith said. “They came ready to play, hungry to beat us. But that’s how everybody comes at us — they want to knock us off.”
The Saints clawed back quickly in the second half, opening with a 10-0 run fueled by fast break buckets. It was a taste of DSA’s own medicine.
“Live by the sword, die by the sword,” said Childs, whose Lions had beat Ruleville Central and Humphreys County earlier in the day.
Lawrence answered Greenville Christian’s run with another explosion of his own, lifting DSA to a 32-27 lead entering the final frame. But midway through the fourth quarter, the Saints took their first lead of the game and never looked back en route to a seven-point victory.
“It’s always fun,” Greenville Christian head coach Logan Collins said of the matchup between former Greenwood High teammates. “They’re kind of proving something against each other.”
The Lions’ improvement was noticeable compared to their last meeting with Greenville Christian, a 69-41 loss back in December. DSA’s offense is becoming more balanced alongside Lawrence, the leading scorer in the entire state last season, thanks to the emergence of Javeon Smith, Labrodrick Gooch and 6-foot-3 rising junior Kizear Little, who has taken over big-man duties for the Lions.
“(Javeon Smith) has increased his vertical, increased his athleticism, and he’s stepped up huge,” Childs said. “(Little) has really been a presence on the offensive board and Gooch has been one to get out in transition and hit a lot of corner threes.”
“They’re getting engaged more so it’s not just two people scoring,” Javeon Smith said of Little and Gooch. “They got to worry about the whole team.”
- Contact Riley Overend at 581-7237 or roverend@gwcommonwealth.com. Follow @OverendOut on Twitter.
