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The Capital City Go-Go traveled to Cleveland to take on the Charge tonight. The first half was full of shots behind the three-point arch. Both teams combined for 25 total attempts in just the first quarter alone. The Charge hit on 27.3% of their three-point attempts compared to the Go-Go’s 45.5%. This was a huge reason Capital City maintained a comfortable lead throughout the first half.
Charge forward Emoni Bates led Cleveland with 15 points in the half, shooting 7/17 from the field in 19 minutes of action in the first half. Go-Go’s forward Jules Bernard led Capital City with 14 points, shooting 8/12 from the field in just 14 minutes of play. The Go-Go’s led the Charge in almost every statistical category in the first half, leading them to a 63-52 lead at the half.
The third quarter is where the Go-Go’s really started to pull away from the Charge. Capital City outscored Cleveland 35-17 in the third quarter, leading them to a 98-69 lead at the end of three. The Go-Go’s were led by Hamidou Diallo who scored 8 points in a little under eight minutes. Capital City advanced with the help of their offensive rebounding, which created many second-chance opportunities. Their defense also played a huge factor in their third-quarter run, accumulating six steals, which led to 12 fast break points.
Charge coach Mike Gerrity turned to his bench in the fourth quarter, hoping to create some spark. They did just that, scoring 38 points to trim the Go-Go lead to as small as 8 points with a few minutes left in the game. This run was led by Devontae Shuler, who contributed 9 points and 2 steals.
Justin Powell and Gabe Osabuohien helped change the game’s momentum and contributed on both the offensive and defensive end. The comeback fell just short as R.J. Hampton scored 6 huge points for Capital City down the stretch.
The final score of the contest resulted in a 120-107 victory in favor of the Capital City Go-Go. Their leading scorer was guard Hamidou Diallo, who put up 20 points and went 10/15 from the field. The Charge’s leading scorer was guard Emoni Bates, who scored 25 points and shot 12/36. These two teams go at it again tomorrow night at 7 PM at the Wolstein Center.
I caught up with Cleveland Charge coach Mike Gerrity afterward to get his thoughts on the game. I asked him what his mentality is going into tomorrow, he responded, “Yeah, so I think on a back-to-back, you obviously want to flush it, but unfortunately, especially being that it’s the same team, there’s a lot we just have to learn from yesterday. Tomorrow, when we bring these guys in, we’ll watch film with them, we’ll have the conversations, and we’ll address the things that need to be addressed in order for us to have a chance tomorrow. We’ve got to make some major changes, and the number one change is our approach.”
When asking coach Gerrity about how crucial being outrebounded by 21 total rebounds affected the game, he replied, “Yeah, I mean 14 offensive rebounds is too many. 18 second chance points – we’ve got to do a much better job of going and hitting and locating guys when the shot goes up. I thought a lot of these that happened today were because we were either leaking out or we weren’t hustling to get back into the play, and those ones can be very frustrating as a coach to see… There were a lot of times when the shot went up, guys just watched instead of going to get that basketball. We have to be much better on the glass because they killed us in that area.”
