Box Score Newport News, VA – The first game of 2022 saw the Apprentice Men's Basketball team welcome in Blue Lights College for a Saturday afternoon match up at the Apprentice Athletic Center. The two teams last met on November 23rd with the Builders coming away with a 98-77 win. Although, Coach Kee and his team saw a number of their games canceled this week, they were excited to be at home debuting their new black uniforms. As Coach Kee said in his pre-game interview, his team was looking to get off to a fast start like they did in in the teams' first meeting.
Both teams got on the board to start the first half, but two 3-pointers from Blue Lights gave them the early 8-2 lead. Vershawn Ealy answered with a three of his own and that was followed a by a Marion Moore offensive rebound, which he converted, to cut the lead to one, 8-7. After two free throws from Jayden Eason, the score was tied at 11-11 and then Xavien "Buck" Hunter drained two straight 3-pointers to give Apprentice the 17-13 lead, as Blue Lights called their first time out of the game. After the timeout, a defensive rebound by Corey Joyner resulted in a fast break basket by Hunter to increase the Builders' lead to 6 points. A 3-pointer from Adrion Wall pushed the lead to 9 points, but Blue Lights answered to cut it back to 7 points. However, a Caleb Miellewski block started a fast break that was finished by an Avin Hawkins layup at the other end and that was followed by an Adrion Wall put-back to keep the lead at 9 points, with 7:52 remaining in the half. A Marion Moore put-back gave the Builders their first double digit lead of the game, 29-19, and two free throws from Corey Joyner gave Apprentice their largest lead of the game, 31-19. Both teams would trade 3-pointers and eventually Blue Lights cut the lead to 10 points, but another fast break opportunity allowed the Builders to take a 36-24 advantage at the 4-minute mark. As the half was coming to an end, Corey Joyner drained a 3-pointer from the top of the key to give Apprentice the lead, 46-33, as they headed into the locker room.
The start of the second half saw Blue Lights go on a 7-0 run to trim the lead to 46-40, which forced the Builders to call a quick timeout. Out of the timeout, Jayden Eason converted a basket underneath, which was followed by a sideline jumper from Avin Hawkins, to get the lead back to 10 points, 50-40. Hawkins would score again to push the lead to 12 points and Eason follwed that to give Apprentice the lead, 54-40. After a back-and-forth, Xavien "Buck" Hunter hit another 3-pointer to keep the lead in double digits but Blue Lights had an answer and suddenly they were back within 9 points of the lead, with 10:42 remaining in the game. After some tough defensive play, the Builders saw their lead go back up to 14 points after Corey Joyner had his 16th assist of the game, when Marion Moore took his pass for an easy bucket under the basket. While Blue Lights tried to cut into the lead, they could not get close enough for a run, and as the horn sounded to end the game, Apprentice would come away with the win, 91-80.
It was a record setting day for Senior Corey Joyner as his 16 assists broke the all-time single game record (2009) in Apprentice Basketball history. His record setting assists allowed Marion Moore to finish with 32 points and Xavien "Buck" Hunter to finish with 15 points. Moore also grabbed a team high 10 rebounds, while Jayden Eason ended the game with 5 steals. The Builders will be back in action next Saturday when they host Emory & Henry. Tip-off is scheduled for 2:00pm.
