Gaston College battles to take Region 10 road victory

Gaston College closed its lengthy Region 10 road trip with success on Wednesday night in a 68-64 victory at Richard Bland.

The Rhinos improved to 14-7 overall and 4-4 in Region 10 by closing out a stretch of five road games in the last three weeks with a 2-3 record.

"We were able to sustain some toughness," Gaston College coach Jamie Rosser said. "I was proud of my guy's toughness because we talk about that all the time. We made free throws down the stretch, we got rebounds that we needed and we stayed together and didn't let the game get away from us."

Gaston College built an 11-point lead at 19-8 on 14:08 mark of the first half and was ahead 32-31 at halftime.

The host Statesmen (11-16, 3-7) then rallied to take a 56-53 lead with 6:57 left in the game.

The Rhinos responded with a 15-8 closing surge that was sparked by two DaMarco Watson drives, a 3-point play and 3-pointer from Dee Merriweather, a Jordan Guthrie free throw and Caleb McCarty's two clinching free throws with 4.9 seconds left.

Merriweather (18 points), Yarayah Evans (11 points, 9 rebounds, 3 blocked shots), Watson (11 points, 7 rebounds, 7 assists), Tyree Bracey (10 points, 7 rebounds, 2 blocked shots) and Guthrie (10 points, 5 assists) led Gaston College's balanced offense.

Rosser was pleased with Evans' play off the bench.

"Yaya Evans was a man tonight," Rosser said. "He had some key dunks, he played good defense and made some key blocked shots for us."

Rosser also commended Watson's playmaking, Merriweather's timely shooting and McCarty's defense, rebounding and late game foul shooting.

"We showed a ton of growth tonight," Rosser said.

The Rhinos' next home game is Saturday at 3 p.m. at Gastonia's Ashbrook High School against Hosanna Bible College; 30 minutes prior to the game, the Rhinos will honor its seven sophomores - Watson, McCarty, Merriweather, Guthrie, Joshua Johnson, Dedrick Givens and Kirk Scoggins on "Sophomore Day."