The Wayne High School senior scored 20 of his 22 points in the first half as the Warriors beat Garfield Heights 62-53 at The Beacon Orthopaedics Flyin’ to the Hoop Invitational on Saturday afternoon at Trent Arena in Kettering.
Wayne junior Isaiah Thompson scored 12 points, senior Myles Perkins had 10 and senior My’Kell Shackleford added nine points as the Warriors improved to 8-4. They’ve won their last two games after back-to-back losses to Springboro and Northmont.
“Our guys deserve all the credit,” said Wayne coach Nathan Martindale. “All of their hard work has paid off. I wanted some guys around the state and some people to know who they were. Basketball is a beautiful game because it allows you to go and compete for an hour-and-a-half, four quarters, 32 minutes and see what you’re made of. We’re just extremely thankful and appreciate the opportunity to be here. I’m so happy for my guys. I love them to death.”
The Warriors executed their game plan perfectly against the Bulldogs and their star player, Ohio State University commit Marcus Johnson, Martindale said. Johnson had a game-high 36 points, but no other Garfield Heights player scored more than nine points.
“We played as hard as we could play defensively,” he said. “Marcus Johnson is the best high school basketball player I’ve seen this year. He’s absolutely phenomenal. (Garfield Heights coach Sonny Johnson) does a great job and I always tell him that. They’re hard to guard and they’re hard to beat. Our kids worked their tails off. The guys didn’t worry about who was scoring and we shared the basketball. Most importantly, we got stops. That was our goal — to get stops and make them play a different way today than they’re used to playing.”
Price scored 11 points in the first quarter as Wayne jumped out to a 13-4 lead. The Bulldogs cut the lead to four points at 21-17, but the Warriors went on a 7-2 run to end the quarter. A putback by Wayne junior Kaden Post gave the Warriors a 30-19 halftime lead.
The Warriors led by as many as 20 points in the second half. The Bulldogs played a frantic pace in the fourth quarter, outscoring Wayne 25-14 in the final eight minutes, but they couldn’t get any closer than nine points.
“We had to relax and take care of the basketball,” Martindale said. “That’s hard to do when a team is going 100 miles per hour and they’re giving you their best shot. I think our kids did enough to do what we needed to do to secure the win.”
Price, who entered Saturday’s game averaging 13.6 points per game, has scored in double digits in at least seven games this season. He shot 8-for-10 from the field, including 3-for-4 from the 3-point line and 3-for-5 from the free throw line.
“He was tremendous,” Martindale said. “He was physical, he was attacking and he made some great decisions. He was super efficient.”
While Price was the leading scorer, he praised the squad for playing as a team.
“We came out and fought together and stayed together until the end,” he said.
Wayne has competed at the Flyin’ to the Hoop every year since 2007. It’s not something they take lightly, Martindale said.
“To come here, you know you’re going to play against a really good team and to win, it feels really special right now for our kids,” he said. “We just know that every time we come here, we’re going to get someone that’s really talented, really good and we have to play our best to win. I felt like our guys did a great job putting four quarters together.”
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