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Boys basketball team’s historic season ends with loss to Milton
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Written by Staff Reports
The end is not near, it’s here.
Wrapping up the best season on record in the past four-and-a-half decades, the boys’ basketball team lost its Final Four game last week to eventual state champion Milton High 86-54.
Led by their three Div.-I prospects, shooting guard Dai-Jon Parker (number 31 on espn.com’s ESPNU Super 60 for the class of 2011), power forward Julian Royal (number 21), and point guard Shannon Scott (number 32), the Eagles shot the lights out with 61 percent for the game.
Also contributing was 6’7” sophomore forward Evan Nolte, who was particularly effective from the three-point arc for Milton, draining five three pointers for the game.
“Nolte was on fire,” Rasmussen said. “He’s only a sophomore, but he’s 6’7”. Think about him with two more years and he’ll be all-world in college. Their whole team is like that going down the line.
“They had a lot of talent, and it wasn’t just that they were talented, it’s that they were playing a great offensive game and they couldn’t miss. The combination of that – the great talent and being on fire: it was just too much.”
For the Rams, junior guard Derrick Henry led the team with 18 points. Henry was the only Newton player to score double figures in the game, with senior guard Tevin Bradley chipping in nine points respectively.
The loss is the end of an exciting run by the team, whose last trip to the Final Four was in 2005 – the final season of legendary former coach Ron Bradley. Rasmussen took over as coach the next season and has averaged 20 wins a season ever since.
Thriving on the leadership of its six seniors, this team made the playoffs on the strength of a 20-game winning streak, an undefeated run through the Region 2-AAAAA ranks and a 30-2 mark: the best the Newton boys have posted since its 1965 championship follow-up season.
It’s quite a collection of accolades for a team with 2-AAAAA Player of the Year Henry as its only D-I hoops hopeful, according to Rasmussen, in contrast to Milton’s nationally-acclaimed powerhouse roster.
“We’ve got nothing to regret,” Rasmussen said of his team’s performance in the playoffs. “We had a great season and nothing to hang our heads about.”
Just last month, while hosting Newton’s first playoff game in 5 years, the boys defeated Jenkins 59-47, and then won an overtime nail-biter in their second home game against Lowndes, 62-59, placing the Rams in the Elite Eight.
From there, they travelled to Fort Valley State. There, in front of a crowd of 50 or so of Newton’s faithful, senior center Chuck Edwards blocked a dunk in the final seconds with Groves still up by two.
“[The block gave] us a chance to tie or get the winning shot,” said Henry, “I wanted to pressure to be on me, so I ran and got the ball.”
After splitting two defenders, Henry elevated to what Assistant Coach Bill Dolan claimed was a few feet from the court and launched a three-pointer with less than three seconds on the game clock. Henry claimed the shot felt good, almost as if he was doing it during practice.
“I felt confident,” he said of the moment, “and like I had perfect form – I felt like it would go in.”
The shot propelled Newton to the Elite Eight, where it would be matched up against Milton, ranked number one in the state and the victor of a one-point squeaker against Norcross.
Prior to the Milton game, Rasmussen said he did not expect the Rams to be able to slow Milton down much tempo-wise, so he hoped to give the Eagles the long three-point shot and not high-percentage shots. Unfortunately for the Rams, they hit both.
“We were decent offensively, but we average 61 points per game and we scored 54. We didn’t do enough but, you know, they were on fire,” Rasmussen said.
Looking forward to next year, Rasmussen said he intends to build around Henry, whom he calls a “college player,” and pound-for-pound, the most talented guard he’s ever coached.
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