Drake Shaw spent most of the second half Monday night trying — and failing — to find his range.

Columbus Christian Academy’s junior guard scored 9 points during the first half, nailing his first 3-pointer less than a minute into the game, but he went stone cold after halftime. A couple of air balls, a front rim, even some passes went awry.

It got so rough for Shaw that Winston Academy coach Justin Childs screamed, “Don’t guard him!” at his defense at one point when Shaw had the ball beyond the arc.

Bad idea.

Shaw’s 3-pointer with 54 seconds remaining proved to be not only his only points of the half but the last points of the night as the Rams defeated the Panthers 46-45 in the final game of the first day of the Columbus Christian Academy Christmas Tournament.

As they say, shooters gotta shoot.

“They left me wide open, and their coach was talking a bunch of crap,” Shaw said. “I was just trying to do what was best for the team. I felt like i had the shot, so I took it, and I made it.”

“I told him, if they’re not going to guard you, just take a dribble, get closer to the 3-point line, and shoot your shot,” CCA coach K.C. Cunningham said. “I don’t care if you shoot, but shoot your shot. Don’t let the opposing coach make you shoot shots that you don’t want to take. And he made a big shot, and it helped us win the game.”

The game wasn’t over after Shaw’s shot. The Panthers came down the floor but missed their next shot, and the Rams appeared to be in good shape when senior forward Jacob Minga grabbed a contested rebound. But a missed front end of a one-and-one had the ball in the Panthers’ hands with 21.1 seconds to go.
After 15 seconds of strong Rams defense, Winston called a timeout, preparing to inbound the ball with 6.2 seconds to go.
“I was telling them they had to communicate,” Cunningham said of the final timeout. “Communication is something I’ve been harping on for the whole year. We’re very young.  We’ve got three seniors, and one of them is a first-year player.

“They’re going to set screens, and we’ve got to talk and let each other know what’s going to happen.”

What nobody expected to happen was for Winston junior guard JR Coleman to lose control dribbling toward the basket from the side and fall to the floor. Simply gathering the basketball sealed a one-point victory for the event hosts.

Shaw led the Rams with 12 points, while Minga, Mason Wright and Joe Edwards each tallied 8. Jackson Howard chipped in with 7 points.

Winston appeared to have on key advantage, two really, in brothers Brantlee and Bryson Wright, who towered over the other players on both teams. Brantlee Wright, a senior, stands 6-foot-6, while his sophomore brother showed off some athletic moves during the game, but neither turned in a dominant performance. Brantlee finished with 14 points, shooting just 6 of 11 from the line, while Bryson managed 7.

Shaw said the Rams didn’t do anything specifically to handle the Panthers’ height.

“We just try to play our best defense,” Shaw said. “We didn’t score a whole lot, but we got back on defense a lot. We tried to play our hardest, and that’s what matters. Just give an effort, and we won.”

Didn’t score a whole lot described both teams throughout the game, which was tied 8-8 after one quarter. The Rams led 20-19 at the half and built their largest lead thanks to a personal 5-point run by Howard that made it 30-22 with 3:54 left in the third.

But a 12-2 Winston run bridging the third and fourth quarters gave the visitors the lead, and the score was close the rest of the way. The Panthers made 9 of 10 free throws during the fourth quarter to keep the pressure on, but five Rams scored during the period, with each of Minga’s two baskets during the quarter giving CCA a 3-point lead.

With each team having to work so hard to score, not much was going to separate them. 

“It was just taking the right shots,” Cunningham said. “And we had a couple of guys, Jackson Howard and Jacob Minga, who were hustling on the barods for us in the second half. I think that extra hustle really helped us pull this thing out.”

The Rams improved to 4-4 with tournament games remaining against JZ George at 5:45 p.m. Tuesday and Winona Christian at 5:30 p.m. Wednesday. The Panthers fell to 1-5.

Girls basketball

Columbus Christian 59, Winston 41: Morgan Whitten poured in 35 points as the Rams won a very physical contest against the Panthers.

Faith Yeates contributed 17 points for CCA in a game in which only three Rams scored. Satavia Watkins added 7 points.

The game featured plenty of hard fouls and plenty of vocal objections from the bleachers, so much so that the referees requested one Winston fan leave the gym. The result was a lot of free throws; CCA went to the line 25 times just in the fourth quarter, hitting 17 of them to pull away after leading 38-29 after three.

Two Winston players fouled out and two others were called for four fouls. Whitten made 14 of 17 free throws for the Rams and scored 10 points in each of the first two quarters as CCA took a 32-17 halftime lead.

For the game, Winston converted just 6 of 19 free throws. Laura Vowell led the Panthers with 11 points.