
The Rock girls and boys varsity basketball teams came together for a good cause on Friday night as part of the second annual Hoops for Heroes.
They raised money for Rhet Cooper’s Miracle, an organization that supports kids and families battling pediatric cancer.
Cooper is a third-grade student at The Rock who was diagnosed with cancer at the age of three and dealt with treatments until recently.
In the final game of the day, the boys team lost a heartbreaker to Newberry, 68-67, in front of a packed house at The Rock School.
“It’s bigger than basketball,” said The Rock boys coach Brian Findley. “We lost a basketball game, which was unfortunate, but what we won, we just raised a lot of money for that cause and that’s really the purpose of this stuff tonight.”
The ladies were first and eighth-grader Ruby Patterson put on a show, scoring 40 points on a school-record nine 3-pointers as the Lions defeated Countryside Christian, 56-24.
“The girls are starting to come together, they are starting to turn the corner,” said The Rock girls coach Wes Phillips. “You have to go into every game with the underdog mentality and just fight and fight and fight. The other part of that is have fun doing it.”
Patterson certainly did just that.
She knocked down a 3-pointer from the right wing with 6:33 to play in the opening quarter and proceeded to add a couple more, including another right-wing 3-ball with 2:13 remaining in the first quarter for a 19-9 lead.
The Minutemen’s Joy Sullivan did her best to keep Countryside Christian in it by making four 3-pointers in the opening period. The senior, who finished with a team-high 14 points, had consecutive 3-pointers to trim the deficit to six, 21-15, at the end of the first quarter.
Patterson had seven points in the second quarter to help extend the lead to 32-15 at the half, but she was only heating up.
She made four 3s in the third quarter, including a halfcourt shot at the buzzer which gave her the school record with eight 3-pointers.
“I just kept on shooting and just tried to have fun and not focus on actually shooting, playing for God,” said Patterson, who said her previous high was “four or five 3s” in a game.
Patterson made her ninth from behind the arc from the top of the key with 3:42 remaining in the game to give her 40 points on the night.
“I’m not surprised,” Phillips said. “Not that I wouldn’t envision her doing it, but it’s her work ethic. She puts in two hours every day no matter what…she’s a workaholic and it pays off.”
Senior Audrey Hubbard was honored during the game for scoring her 1,000th point. She reached the milestone in December at a tournament, but TRS wanted to recognize her at home.
“I hit it a little while ago, we just did the recognition tonight,” Hubbard said. “It’s something that not a lot of people get to do so I feel like it was cool that I got to do it.”
The Richard Bland College of William & Mary signee (South Prince George, Virginia) scored her only points on a layup with 3:07 to play, so the Lions called time out to honor her at midcourt with a 1,000-point keepsake basketball.
“I’m so happy she came because it was about leadership for her,” Phillips said. “I have a young group, and we needed her leadership.”
Countryside Christian (6-4) will host Ocala Christian on Tuesday, while The Rock (7-16) will host Excel Christian Academy (Lakeland). The tip for both games is at 5:30 p.m.
In the boys game against undefeated Newberry, the visiting Panthers rallied from a 17-point deficit to stay unbeaten.
“We had some challenges early on, just came out flat for whatever reason, missing one of our main guys Logan McCloud [football recruiting trip to Wofford],” said Newberry coach Patrick Green. “That guy kind of makes up for any wrongdoings we might have so I challenged the boys that we had to collectively fill in for Logan. It took four quarters, but we did it.”
Senior Collin Dunmore’s layup with nine seconds remaining was the difference in a 68-67 win on the road.
“We came in from a timeout and gave the guys a game plan and that’s exactly what we said because he made a mistake on the put back, and so I told him, ‘Son, we’re going to run this particular play and you’re going to be the one to win the game,’ and he did it.”
Newberry trailed, 56-51, with under seven minutes to play when junior Henry Matthias (game-high 20 points) made a 3-pointer from the right wing, followed by a 3-ball from the right corner for a 57-56 lead with 4:54 remaining.
“As well as he shoots for whatever reason tonight, he was a little hesitant so that was kind of the message going into the timeout and I said, ‘Hey man, you’ve got to take some shots,’ and he got out there and thank God he did, and it was big for us tonight,” Green said.
Down one, The Rock’s Marco Johnson drilled a 3-pointer from the left wing for a 67-65 lead with 56 seconds to play.
“He’s another one of our eighth graders,” Findley said. “We have three eighth graders out there and all three of them played great tonight. They’re playing a lot of minutes, and they’ve got bright futures ahead of them.”
Eighth-grader Zaire Colbert led The Rock with 14 points. He was one of four players in double figures along with sophomore Kayden Merricks (13), eighth-grader Avery Jones (11), and 6’9 junior Hendrix Loughridge (10).
Junior Juwan Scippio added 10 points for Newberry, which improved to 16-0.
“We earned this one,” Green said. “We have not had a team challenge us to the last second like we had tonight so it was good to see that because I wanted to see how the boys would respond. We thought they would respond the right way, and they did.”
The Panthers will host Vanguard (Ocala) at 7:30 p.m., while the Lions (10-6) will play a pair of games in Daytona on Saturday against Excel Christian Academy (Lakeland) and Calusa Prep (Miami).
You can read more about Rhet’s story, what they do and how you can be a part of their mission by visiting www.rhetcoopersmiracle.org