The Millbrook Men’s Basketball team kicked off their holiday break with a 67-53 win over Dutch Fork (SC) High School in the first round of the 2015 Shootout By The Sea Tournament at North Myrtle Beach High School.
No quarters, just halves are played in the “Palmetto State," and it took the opening four minutes of the game for either team to find the scoreboard. Millbrook’s Trejon Jacob got to the cup twice, along with Jordan Whitfield who rattled in a three that would force the Silver Foxes to burn an early timeout, already down 7-0.
The opening Wildcat run got to as big as 12-0 before Dutch Fork answered with a 13-2 run of their own to cut it to a one point game with 6:28 left in the half. Jacob extended Millbrook’s lead back out to four with a three pointer. He would find his stroke from beyond the arc once again, this time it broke an 18-18 tie with 4:28 remaining in the half. Faison Brock scored two on a putback layup moments later, then John Burwell went on a run of his own with a runner in the lane, his first three point field goal of the season, and a jumper from the right wing. Burwell, Brock, Whitfield, and Jacob would be the only four Wildcats to score in the first half as Millbrook took a 32-25 lead into the break.
Jacob, who scored a team leading 12 points in the first half added two more off of the inbound to start the second stanza. That basket was proceeded by nine straight points from Faison Brock who would finish with a team high 19 points.
Dutch Fork would not go away behind the strength of senior, Jordan Warlick. The 6’3 forward scored 9 second half points and chipped into a twelve point Millbrook lead. Jordan Davis, who entered the game as the Silver Foxes’ leading scorer, with an average of over 29 points per game sunk a pair of free throws to cut the Wildcat lead to six points. Those two points would be his only two in the second half, but his 11 first half points were still enough to lead the team in scoring with 13.
“No doubt that he’s a Division I guard, I think he has offers from Cincinnati, and ECU. You could really see why those schools like him.” said Millbrook coach, Scott McInnes. “I thought we played well defensively for stretches but at times we lost him, especially in the first half, but Faison, Trejon, and John Burwell really stepped up in that second half and forced him into some tough shots.”
As they forced Dutch Fork into tough shots, the Silver Foxes did the opposite by sending Millbrook to the line for two shots, seven times in the final four minutes of play. 9 of the last 19 Wildcat points would come at the charity stripe, the only exception being a pair of baskets from John Burwell, who finished with 17 points, and a pair of scores from Trejon Jacob, who along with Brock, led the team with 19. Senior, CJ Thompson also scored for Millbrook as they wrapped up the 67-53 win.
McInnes added that “it was another great game from Faison, which was great to see, he’s starting to string together three or four solid games, and then to see Trejon Jacob get going was great… you also cannot leave out John who has the keys to a nice new Corvette right now as our point guard and he is driving it phenomenally.”
Millbrook (7-0, 3-0) advances to the winners bracket of the tournament, and they will play Tuesday night at 8:30 PM vs. Center Point (AL). Dutch Fork falls to 6-2 with the loss, they will take on the host school, North Myrtle Beach at 2:30 PM in the losers bracket.