The Wallace Community College-Selma Patriots controlled the game from start to finish on their way to a dominating 82-54 win over the Gadsden State Community College Cardinals at home on Saturday.

Foster Davis, head men’s basketball coach of Wallace (14-5, 2-1 in the Alabama Community College Conference), said his team’s hard work is really paying off in a big way.

“I tell you the truth, these guys have put in a lot of hard work all year really, but especially the last month, month and a half. They’ve been real dedicated and have just played hard,” Davis said. “We lost a couple games lately because the last five minutes of the game we didn’t play hard down that stretch. Tonight we just went out there and put them away early, and played hard down the stretch.”

Gadsden (11-4) led 9-8 early, until Wallace’s Matrell Smith hit a jumper that ultimately gave Wallace the lead for good, as the Patriots went on a 10-2 run that included 3-pointers by Fred Turner and Patrick Johnson, as well as a tip in by Bilal Richardson that made the score 20-11 with 10:22 left in the first half.

Gadsden’s Jacob Freeman hit a pair of free throws to put a temporary stop to the run, but Johnson answered right back with another 3-pointer to extend Wallace’s lead to 23-13.

The Cardinals cut the Wallace lead down to 28-21, but Johnson scored in the paint and Turner hit 3-pointers on back-to-back trips up the floor to extend the Patriots’ lead to 36-21.

Henry Pressley added a pair of baskets for the Patriots before halftime, as Wallace went into the locker room ahead 40-27.

It was more of the same for the Patriots in the second half, as Johnson scored four points, and Richardson, Turner and Garrison Webb each added baskets in the first five minutes of the half to extend the Wallace lead to 50-33 with 15:02 left.

Johnson owned the second half for the Patriots, scoring 9 points in the second half.

He had 24 points for the Patriots, while Turner led Wallace with 25 points, including five shots from behind the arch.

Webb had 14 points for Wallace, while Richardson had 9 points.

Wallace hit a total of 10 3-pointers on the day.

 

Lady Patriots fall to Gadsden

The Wallace Community College-Selma Lady Patriots closed the gap early in the second half, but couldn’t hold on in Saturday’s 65-43 home loss to the No. 24 Gadsden State Community College Lady Cardinals.

April Harper, head women’s basketball coach of Wallace (2-14, 1-0 in the Alabama Community College Conference), said her team strayed from the game plan and had too many missed shots.

“We were able to cut it to single digits for a while, but the most important thing is that you’ve got to be able to stick to the game plan. We’ve got to get back on defense, we stopped running our offense and had too many missed free throws and too many missed open shots,” Harper said. “You’ve got to stick to the plan. If you stick to the plan and keep it simple, hey, maybe we would have had the opportunity to win this game, but discipline is a very important part of winning games. We’ve got to get back out there, keep playing, stay disciplined and get in a little better shape. And we’re going to have to have more help from our bench.”

The Lady Patriots trailed the Lady Cardinals (14-3, ranked No. 24 in the National Junior College Athletic Association) 34-19 at halftime until Waynicia Thomas scored in the paint to make it 34-21 with 19:18 left in the second half.

Wallace kept it going, as Kadijah Small hit a pair of free throws and Ebony Childers added another before teammate Jameneshia Caver scored in the paint to make it 34-26 with 17:05 left.

The Lady Cardinals called a timeout and came back with baskets from Calishia Parker and Jasmyne Reeves before Wallace’s Jonishia Jackson scored on a layup that put the score at 38-28 with 15:07 left.

But the Lady Cardinals responded by going on a 9-1 run to put their lead at 47-29 with 10:38 left.

The Lady Cardinals pulled away, as the Lady Patriots could only get as close as 16 points the remainder of the way.

Caver led Wallace with 12 points, while Takeela Mixon had 11 points and Small had 9 points.

Both Wallace teams will travel to Mobile Tuesday to take on Bishop State.