LAWRENCE — No.3 Lawrence Central (18-3) has been riding around in the ’79 Impala knocking boyz off all season long. They’re making sure that everybody and their Uncle LeRoy and Aunt Betty knows that they are the real deal. Well playas…on Friday night they pulled up with the power hole wide open bumpin’ that 21 Savage “A Lot” because they’ve been winning a lot, ballin’ a lot, dunking a lot, shooting a lot and crossing boyz over a lot.
No. 12 Center Grove (14-7) jumped out of the car with Trayce Jackson-Davis, the MCDonald’s All-American, ready to do battle. However, when the smoke cleared Lawrence Central was driving off in the Impala sitting on them thangs with a 72-63 victory.
Center Grove came out of the ride being the aggressor going on a 4-0 run. Then LC’s Xavier DelReal knocked down the three to put the Bears on the board. That lit the fuse and it was off to the races after that. Nijel Pack got a steal and their transition game was kicked into high gear as he scores his first bucket of the night to put Lawrence Central up 5-4 and it was like Chris Brown up in that piece from that point on, “On and Poppin’!”
They went on a 9-2 run and never trailed the rest of the way. In just the first quarter Pack had several rips, a few funky crossovers, a mean step back on a boy and a yoke that brought the house down. Did I mention that all of this took place in the first quarter? I thought that I did but I’m just making sure. He literally had on the full clown suit complete with the water spitting flower on these boyz finishing with 23 points!!! STRAIGHT CLOWNIN’!!! He was a video game out there. At the end of the first quarter LC was up 17-12.
With Nijel taking boyz to the rack without permission Dre Davis darn near tore the rim down with two monster dunks in a row and before I could bite into my hot dog they were up 30-17 with 3:58 left in the half.
Al Gooden’s squad was ripping Center Grove clean so much that the Bears had 5 transition dunks in the first half alone. Those are what we call momentum stealers and they literally had all of it going into the break up 34-20.
The Bears came out of the break the same way they went into it, knocking down big shots. Xavier DelReal launched a three to get the party back into full gear. Then Nijel Pack came right back down the floor and knocked down a three as well to make it a 6-0 run out of the break. Before I could sit down with my nachos LC was running away with it 40-22.
And oh yeah, somebody dunked again. It was NUTS! I counted 6 dunks before the midway point of the third quarter.
However, the Trojans weren’t about to give up and let a boy just take their sneakers and jewelry without at least a fight. The All-American, Trayce Jackson-Davis dropped off 27 points just to let cats know that the accolades weren’t all hype. He’s the real deal. Center Grove’s Justin DeGraaf kept getting to the rack as Jackson-Davis was a problem for the Bears to handle. At the end of three Lawrence Central was up 48-37.
Center Grove continued to fight but LC’s was just too strong of a team with some insane guard play that we haven’t seen in a long time. I’ll keep saying it, Nijel Pack is by far the best point guard in the state and he’s riding around with a car full of studs that are “Bout it” like Master P.
The fourth quarter was a matter of formality and a boy had better not sleep on Al Gooden’s ball club because the Impala is going to pull onto their street with the music on full blast at some point and it won’t be nice. Lawrence Central isn’t trying to sneak up on anybody anymore. They’re letting you know that they’re coming and you better be ready for them. Stop me when I start lyin’!
Playas Thesaurus:
1) Power hole: noun – power sun roof
2) Sittin’ on them thangs: to have custom rims on the car
3) Yoke: verb – to dunk massively
4) Dun: noun – the person in question, dude, guy, etc. It’s whoever I’m talkin’ about and its non-gender specific.