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GFA routs St. Luke's in season-opener
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Greens Farms Academy coach Doug Scott said he had the jitters before the season opener against St.Luke’s on Tuesday.
"It wasn’t only opening day,” Scott said, “We had never won at St. Luke’s before.”
While Scott may have been jittery, his players weren’t. The Dragons shrugged of a quick five-point deficit and opened up a 13-point lead at the half on their way to a comfortable 65-31 victory.
They were led by junior center Sean Obi, who came to Fairfield County from Nigeria a year ago with only two years of basketball under his belt.
“I played a lot of soccer back home which gave me quick feet,” said the 6’9, 260-pound Obi, who showed quick feet while scoring 30 points despite spending a lot of time sitting as Scott used his bench freely.
If Obi wasn’t blocking shots he was changing them. Guarding him was nearly impossible as the Storm tried fronting him, doubling him and finally, hanging on to him.
Scott said, “Sean is a wonderful kid and a terrific student with a high IQ both on the court and in the classroom.”
Obi is surrounded by a host of good players – six of whom are considered “players of interest” by college scouts.
One of the six is – are you sitting down? – 13-years old.He’s a seventh grader at Greens Farms who won’t turn 14 until January. Tremont Waters is a 5-foot-8 bolt of lightning who is equally quick with his hands as he is with his feet. And like Obi, he sees the court and is totally unselfish.
The Storm is a team that could win a lot of games this year after winning the FAA title last year, but they have only one starter (a sometimes-starter at that) back from last year.
“Our starters today scored only 13 points and we couldn’t handle their pressure defense,” said St. Luke’s coach Brian Kriftcher. “In the first half when we did have some good looks we just couldn’t knock them down. But give them credit, they played well and Obi especially made life difficult for us.”
The Storm opened with a 5-0 run to start the game but Obi scored the next eight points along with three blocked shots as the Dragons took the lead for good.
They opened up a 17-point lead as Obi moved out of the deep post, got a pass at the sideline and fed a perfect pass to a cutting Waters for an easy layup.
Waters won an award recently at the prestigious Five-Star Basketball Camp as “The Most Likely to Win A Division 1 Scholarship.”
“I love playing and spend a lot of time trying to improve my game,” Waters said. After Obi’s 30-points Hunter Eggers was next in scoring with 13 points. Jalen Latta led the Storm with 13 points.
“We play five games in eight days, all on the road. I’ll know after that how good we are,” Scott said.
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