CALEDONIA — Every time he rises up to throw a dunk down, Shemar Johnson feels the energy rise around him.
“It gets our team going, gets me going,” said Johnson, New Hope’s 6-foot-5 senior guard who has become accustomed to delivering momentum-swinging slams. “It’s a great feeling.”
It’s a feeling Johnson felt plenty Tuesday night.
Johnson threw down a pair of rim-rattlers in the first 31 seconds of his team’s game at Caledonia, the first coming off a steal and the second on a two-handed finish of a lob from teammate Willie Ousley. Johnson’s slams set the tone for a 74-32 win that was filled with highlight-worthy plays by the Trojans.
“As much as you try to convince kids a dunk is only worth two points,” Caledonia coach Josh Scott said, “sometimes that’s not the reality. Plays like that can fire one team up and get the other team down on itself.”
That’s the spark Johnson provided for the Trojans (7-3). He wasn’t alone.
While Johnson finished with 26 points, including 14 from seven dunks, the Trojans assaulted the basket, as guard Demyis Mayberry, forward Terryonte Thomas, and backup guard Jaylon Blair all had dunks for the Trojans.
Mayberry, a senior guard, teamed with Johnson for three consecutive slams in the first two minutes to help the Trojans get off to a 10-0 start. Johnson had eight points in the surge.
“We felt good from the start,” said Johnson, who was 13-for-16 from the field. “Starting off with plays like that gets our intensity up, gets us going.”
The Trojans liked the first-quarter run so much they repeated the feat after halftime.
Leading 37-18 at halftime, the Trojans scored the first 13 points of the second half. They outscored the Confederates 23-0 in the first three minutes of each half.
“We always preach to win the start of the game and the start of the second half,” New Hope coach Drew McBrayer. “Usually, if you win the first four minutes of each half, you’ll be in pretty good shape the rest of the game. We did that tonight.”
Johnson was in the thick of the clinching run. After scoring 20 points in the first half, Johnson scored on three of New Hope’s first five second-half possessions. That streak included a layup and — naturally — two dunks that pushed New Hope’s lead to 50-18. He left the game with 3 minutes, 37 seconds left in the third quarter.
“Shemar played well,” McBrayer said. “We saw some zone tonight, so we wanted to work on getting him the ball in scoring situations in the zone, which meant flashing him to the high post every time we saw that look. With his athleticism, he can turn a high post look into a layup, and he did that. I feel like we will see a lot of zone going forward. This was a good test for him.”
While Johnson’s high-wire act stole the show, 13 of the 15 Trojans who played scored.
“They are a great ball team,” Scott said. “We knew they weren’t going to play a bad game. It was a situation where if they did play bad, and we played really, really well, then we would have a good ballgame. But they were outstanding.”
Caledonia closed the gap to 18-12 at the end of the first quarter. But that’s as close as the Confederates would get, as the Trojans never led by less than six points.
Thomas and forward Terrell Jennings had 10 points, while reserve guard Darius Williams scored seven. New Hope limited Caledonia to six points in the second and third quarters to stretch the lead to as much as 44. New Hope forced 24 turnovers.
“We turned it over way too much,” Scott said. “We had a deer-in-the-headlights look to start the game, but we got over that. I thought we played well at times, but again, they are a great team.”
Guard Robert Hamilton led Caledonia with eight points. William Moore added six.
Girls
New Hope 31, Caledonia 27
It was never pretty, but it didn’t have to be. New Hope fought through a poor shooting performance and rallied from a five-point deficit in the first half.
The Lady Trojans earned their second win of the season by erasing a 17-13 halftime deficit and outscoring the Lady Confederates 18-10 in the second half.
“In the first half, it just seemed like there was no effort,” New Hope coach Laura Lee Holman said. “In the second half, we got them to raise their effort level. Just by playing harder, we were able to get some stops and get the win.”
New Hope surged into the lead in the third quarter thanks to a strong showing by senior forward LaClaudia Keaton, who scored six of her game-high nine points during a four-minute stretch. An offensive rebound and subsequent score by Keaton gave New Hope the lead for good with two minutes left in the quarter, as the Lady Trojans took a 23-22 lead and never looked back.
Keaton also had 12 rebounds.
“We knew we would have a size advantage,” Holman said. “We were able to use that in the second half to get rebounds and to hold them to one shot every time down the floor. We used that to outrebound them, and that was big.”
The Lady Trojans had a 47-29 rebounding edge. Sophomore forward Kennedi Stephens added five points for New Hope.
For Caledonia, which led the entire first half, senior guard Quashun Betts led all scorers with 11 points, while sophomore guard Laken Sanders added six.
Caledonia will play host to Nanih Waiya on Thursday, while New Hope will play host to Noxubee County on Friday.
Follow Dispatch sports writer Brandon Walker on Twitter @BWonStateBeat
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