Gaston improves to 3-0

Gaston College had to work overtime to stay unbeaten as the successful restart of its basketball program continued on Wednesday night.

Despite trailing much of the second half, the Rhinos rallied to force overtime before pulling away for a 95-92 overtime victory over Lincolnton's Combine Academy in a Gaston College home game played at Gaston Christian School in Lowell.

Damon Davis (29 points, 10 rebounds) had his second double-double of the season to lead Gaston College (3-0), which hosts Lakeside Prep on Saturday at 2 p.m. at Gastonia's Piedmont Community Charter School in its next game.

Kalil Camara (14 points, 13 rebounds) also had a double-double and Da'marco Watson (15 points) and Dee Merriweather (11 points) were other double-figure scorers.

Merriweather's 3-pointer from the left corner with 16.9 seconds left in regulation forced the extra period of a game in which the Rhinos trailed by eight three times in the final 8 1-2 minutes, the last time at 78-70 at the 6:36 mark.

In overtime, Gaston College limited Combine Academy to one of 10 field goal shooting, Watson's driving layup gave the Rhinos the lead for good at 91-90 and Merriweather hit two clinching free throws with 2.0 seconds left.

"It's a good win for us," Rhinos coach David "Dickey" Nutt said. "We're happy to be 3-0. I was really proud of our guys today. I thought we showed a lot of resilience. We beat a really good team. But our defense prevailed there at the end."

Gaston College, which had basketball teams for eight seasons from 1964-65 to 1971-72, is off to the third 3-0 start in school history. It last started 3-0 in the 1970-71 season.