On Friday, the Pace Academy Knights faced the McDonough Warhawks in a battle between two of the state's top teams. Pace Academy took a 63-59 hit to the loss column at the hands of McDonough. It was the first time this season that Pace Academy let down their fans at home.
Pace Academy lost despite a true team effort on the offense, the best among them being MJ Madison, who scored 15 points along with five rebounds. That's the first time this season that Madison scored 15 or more points. The team also got some help courtesy of Eric Chatfield, who scored 15 points along with two steals.
McDonough was led to victory by Zion Greene and Keenan Gray. Greene scored 17 points along with eight rebounds and three steals, while Gray scored 18 points along with eight assists. Nathadeus Fambro was another key contributor, scoring 11 points.
Pace Academy's defeat ended a ten-game streak of wins at home and dropped them to 14-3. As for McDonough, the victory was the seventh in a row for them, bringing their record for this year to 18-2.
Pace Academy won't have much time to rest: their next game is against Pebblebrook at 3:00 p.m. on January 20th. Pebblebrook will have to bring their A-game into this one, as they are staring down a pretty big deficit in the MaxPreps Georgia Rankings (they are ranked 111th, while Pace Academy is ranked 12th). As for McDonough, they will be playing in front of their home fans against Lovett at 7:30 p.m. on Tuesday. That game will pit two of the most dominant guards against one another: Kingston Whitty and Gray.
