There was a new coach stalking the sidelines and some new faces on the floor, but it still yielded much the same result for Miller.
Miller School broke out of a first quarter funk to knock off a drastically improved but still young Woodberry Forest squad 67-51 Friday night in both squads’ season opener.
Mychal Parker and Brice Kofane led the way, pouring in 25 and 17 points respectively. The Mavericks, the defending Division II state champions who’ve moved to Division I this year, also got a steady performance at the point from D’Andre Corbin and new backcourt mate Preston Terrell. For the second straight year, Corbin has the heady task of distributing the ball in a potent offense.
“He’s got a lot on his shoulders this year—he’s our true point guard, we don’t really have too much of a backup at that position,” said Miller coach Scott Willard, who picked up a win his opener at the head of the Mavericks’ program. “We’re really looking for him to share the basketball and control the game.”
The Mavericks’ slight early struggles were a direct product of Woodberry throwing a smaller lineup at Miller — something that with a front line that checks in at 6-foot-6, 6-foot-8 and 6-foot-8 is going to be a regular issue for the Mavericks. The matchups left Hippolyte Tsafack, Miller’s 6-8 Memphis signee, guarding a smaller player, which forced him into some less than desirable situations.
“He got in foul trouble picking up fouls away from the basketball where he wouldn’t traditionally do it,” Willard said. “A lot of our bigs got into foul trouble because they’re guarding smaller guys—they started reaching and doing stuff that’s not characteristic of bigs.”
Parker helped make up for those problems with a nice stretch in the third quarter. The Maryland-bound senior buried a 3-pointer, then zipped a pass from the halfcourt line to a wideopen Preston Terrell near the basket for another bucket and took a charge on the ensuing Woodberry possession.
“Mychal has been a little sick this week and that’s why we took him out in stints to get his breath,” Willard said. “Obviously halftime helped him … he really gave us a good spurt there.”
Miller straightened things out quickly and got on a roll, stepping things up defensively with a number of blocked shots against the Tigers. Dondre Jackson managed a couple of key buckets for Woodberry, but the smaller, inexperienced Tigers couldn’t get over the hump against a powerful Miller lineup. That’s a big part of second year coach Joel Justus’ plan though — show his young squad what they’re competing against.
“I feel like our guys want a challenge,” Justus said. “The way that we’re going to be at the of Division I in this state is to see what the challenge is, see who’s ahead of us and see what we have to do.”
Woodberry’s Dondre Jackson led the Tigers with 10 points, while C.J. Prosise knocked in nine for the night. James Long and Kevin Chiusseu also looked steady against the Mavericks as just sophomores. Woodberry has nine new varsity players, including six who are new to the school.
Woodberry is slated to head to Bishop Ireton today at 6 p.m. while Miller hosts North Cross next Wednesday.
