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SEHS gives Camden a fight before falling 71-61
Marcus Campbell
A battle of 10 -- South Effingham's Marcus Campbell (No. 10) shoots over Camden County's Travis Herrin (No. 10) during the Wildcats' 71-61 win over the Mustangs on Friday night. (Mark Lastinger for the Effingham Herald.)

By Donald Heath

Special for the Effingham Herald

GUYTON – South Effingham will play a lot of basketball teams like Camden County this season.

The Wildcats press full court and fall back into an aggressive zone defense. They use defense and rebounding to generate offense. Soft teams get eaten up.

A year ago, Camden made short work of the Mustangs.

Friday night, South showed toughness and gave the Wildcats a tussle before falling 71-61 at the Corral.

“Camden County has a history of winning and we played them hard, but we lost,” Mustangs coach Rico Campbell said. “Hats off to them. We lost to them by 50 last year. Now, if we could clean some things up, we could be right there.”

The next night, South tasted success with a 54-46 win over Southeast Bulloch.

Playing Camden, a region champion last season, on even terms most of Friday night might have provided confidence leading to Saturday’s success.

The Mustangs held a 57-56 lead with 2:57 to go after Hayden Lloyd’s 3-point play.

But the Wildcats made three 3-pointers down the stretch and finished on a 15-4 run to overtake their hosts.

Campbell pointed to several problem areas. After the first quarter, the Mustangs made just 8-of-22 free-throw shots. To compound their dilemma, they saw only three field-goal attempts drop in the fourth quarter.

“The guys who shoot well didn’t shoot well tonight,” Campbell said. “We’ll own that. We didn’t finish the game and we’ll have to work on that.”

South (3-7) resides in a subregion with Bradwell Institute, Brunswick and Statesboro and all three live on pressuring their opponents.

Last season, the Mustangs couldn’t handle the pressure and lost by 57 and 34 points in two meetings with Camden County, a region champion and a 21-win team.

This season, South not only handled Camden’s pressure, it dished out some. The Mustangs finished the third quarter on a 10-4 run and led 50-46 entering the final eight minutes.

Corbin McGuire
Mustangs' Corbin McGuire tries to shoot over Camden County's David Coleman (No. 0) Friday night. South Effingham took a lead into the fourth quarter before falling 71-61. (Mark Lastinger for the Effingham Herald.)
Camden answered with a 10-1 run as South failed to make a field goal during the first 4 ½ minutes of the fourth quarter. But Corbin McGuire’s 3-pointer and Lloyd’s conventional three-point play forged South back into the lead, 57-56.

McGuire finished with 12 points and added a scrappy performance fighting on the boards. Sophomore Landyn White had nine of his 11 points in the second half and senior Will Harlin had seven of his 10 points after intermission.

Sophomore Benja Crofts and junior Corey Woods also provided some solid play defensively off the bench.

“This is what it’s about at this point in the season (before subregion play Jan. 7), trying to clean up your mistakes,” Campbell said. “I’m not disappointed. When you play good teams, you’re exposed in different ways. I don’t think our effort has changed.”

 

SEHS girls fall to Camden, beat SEB

South Effingham’s girls won the small battles Friday night. The Mustangs didn’t come close to winning in the 52-24 defeat to Camden County, but they frustrated the Wildcats enough to have their coach put the starters back in midway through the fourth quarter.

After trailing 45-14 to begin the quarter, South scored eight straight points and won the fourth quarter 10-7.

South (4-6) was on the happier end of a blowout, defeating Southeast Bulloch 79-14 on Saturday night in Brooklet. The 65-point margin of victory was the Mustangs’ largest since at least the 2006-07 season – as far back as MaxPreps keeps girls' basketball records.