BY DAVID FOLSE II

Sports Editor

RESERVE-The boys of Reserve Christian hadn’t played a game in over a week and they sure looked like it Monday night.

However, they still came away with the win.

Behind 31 points from Demond “Tweetie” Carter, the Eagles defeated Country Day, 55-46 to conclude the regular season.

Jon Anderson led Country Day with 14 points and Parham Mortagedi had 12.

With the win, the Eagles improve to an impressive 32-13 on the season heading into the playoffs Friday night.

As of print time, RCS’s opponent has yet to be determined as has gametime.

Scoring the first six points of the game, the Eagles had a 18-11 lead after the first quarter.

Out of necessity in the second quarter that saw Country Day cut the lead to two, Carter scored all 12 RCS points in the second quarter to keep the Eagles ahead by a slim 28-26 score.

Country Day would tie the game up at 28 with 6:04 remaining in the third quarter, but a 6-0 RCS run, highlighted by four points from Carter gave the Eagles a 34-28 lead; a lead that they would not relinquish.

Reserve Christian Head Coach Tim Byrd said he was happy to come away with the win, but said his team showed the signs of a team that hasn’t played against an opposing team in over a week.

“We’re glad we won, but it was a disappointing game,” Byrd said. “We wanted to play a team like Country Day because of the style of basketball that they play. Those types of teams want to make the game ugly and be methodical on offense. They want to run the motion and keep the score under 50.

“I was just disappointed because of the lack of focus that our team showed out there today. Part of that is we haven’t practice since Thursday and we haven’t played a game since last Saturday.”

Byrd said the signs of rust were there.

“You could tell,” Byrd said. “We were sluggish, we were not focused. It was senior night, but you cannot use any of those things as excuses.

“We needed this game to get us refocused on what our mission is and that is the playoffs and being the last team standing.”

Byrd said he was also disappointed with his team’s seemingly reliance on Carter as their lone offensive threat.

“They just sat around the court and watched him,” Byrd said. “We haven’t done that in a while. The last time that we probably did that was against Brother Martin and Rummel.

“We can’t win a state championship if Tweetie is the only person carrying the load. Part of that is lack of focus, the change of the time of the game and the fact that the last practice that we had was Thursday.

Byrd said he is confident that his team will respond.

“I’m not that concerned,” Byrd said. “I know that we will get busy practicing and get back to the things that make us good.”