DeMatha vs Greenbelt (Eleanor Roosevelt)

Recap

by Ashen Stuart

The Raiders return to the face DeMatha hoping for a new outcome, however the home team proved to be too dominate beating the Raiders, 73-59.

Kade Sebastian started the game red hot for DeMatha hitting a pair of triples and easy inside baskets giving them a commanding 11-2 lead early in the game. It was the DeMatha defense that was the prompted their lead, they started in an aggressive 1-2-2 press and hit the Raiders with the first blow. They shocked Roosevelt, getting easy steals and points just by forcing the Raiders to go where they want. This helped give DeMatha a 27-11 lead with over 10 minutes left to go in the first half. However, around half way through the first half DeMatha’s fire got smaller and Roosevelts just started.

When #0, Dionte Walker, came into the game he brought the type of intensity that inspires your teammates and that fueled the hungry Raiders. Gio Sanford turned it up dropping bucket after bucket, proving his dominance and star power to an established DeMatha team. Micheal Osuji also had a very underrated Dennis Rodman type performance, he grabbed 13 boards with 6 of them being offensive and recorded 8 points to go along with it. Roosevelt got scrappy and clawed their way back to within 10 points, but went into halftime down by 11, 45-34. Coming out of halftime DeMatha snapped back to reality and put their foot back on the gas.

DeMatha came out ready to battle and dominated the floor for almost all 16 minutes. Their defense stayed solid, except for the person guarding Gio Sanford, and they remained poised on the offensive end. Overall it was a beautiful half of basketball to watch and they’ll be the team to beat if they continue to play like so. They also had an entire lineup of freshman who played as if they were upperclassmen. I couldn’t even tell a few of them were freshman until it was pointed out to me. Getting to watch them develop in the Capitol Hoops Summer League will be a treat. But even with how good DeMatha played they still had no answer for Gio Sanford.

Gio Sanford was really the story this half, it seemed like he scored all of his team points in the second half. He was hitting mid range after mid range and all while shooting off the dribble having almost no spot up jumpers. He had a very impressive game with 28 points, 5 rebounds, and never got subbed out once. As a team Roosevelt was decent but lost some of the intensity they previously found late in the first half, they had sloppy turnovers and repeated the same mistakes over and over. However I believe with time this team can become very good, and find their spot in PG County.

DeMatha checks off another win in the books, and Roosevelt starts the Capitol Hoops Summer League 0-1. I cannot wait to see what is next for these two teams!