Carolina Forest entered their contest against Christ Church Episcopal on Friday without any home losses, but there's a first time for everything. The Carolina Forest Panthers opened the new year with a less-than-successful 75-67 loss to the Christ Church Episcopal Cavaliers. Despite running the score up even higher than they did in their prior game last Thursday (63), the Panthers still had to take the loss.
Despite the defeat, Carolina Forest saw an underclassman step up: freshman JJ Gray went 10 for 15 on his way to 29 points. That was a full 43.3% of Carolina Forest's points, marking the third time in a row he's posted more than a third of the team's points. Javion Barrett was another key player, going 5 for 11 on his way to 13 points and seven rebounds.
Christ Church Episcopal's victory was a true team effort, with many players turning in solid performances. Perhaps the best among them was Jonathan Perry, who went 7 of 8 on his way to 19 points in addition to six rebounds and three steals. That's the most steals Perry has posted since back in January of 2024. The team also got some help courtesy of Reid Hipp, who dropped a double-double on 16 points and 13 boards.
Carolina Forest's loss ended a six-game streak of wins at home and dropped them to 9-1. As for Christ Church Episcopal, the win was the fourth in a row for them, bringing their record for this year to 7-3.
Carolina Forest wasted no time getting back out on the court and has already played their next match, a 58-47 defeat against Conway on the 4th. As for Christ Church Episcopal, they also didn't take long to hit the court again: they've already played their next game, a 41-32 victory against Brookland-Cayce on the 4th.
Article generated by infoSentience based on data entered on MaxPreps
