Churchill Wallops Richard Montgomery, 64-30

The boys varsity basketball team used a stingy defense and its best shooting of the season to wallop visiting Richard Montgomery, 64-30, on Tuesday night.

The win improved the Bulldogs’ overall record to 8-3 and 3-1 in the Montgomery 4A South Division, where they remain tied for the lead with Wootton.

The Bulldogs focused their defense on the Rockets’ Justin Senou, who came into the game as one of the metropolitan area’s top scorers (22 points-per-game average). Guarded mostly by junior Dominique Williams, Senou managed just three points and six shots. Williams’ teammates got the job done too as they limited the visitors to just 12-of-46 shooting from the floor (26%).

“Dom’s job was to lock [Senou] up, deny him the ball and make him work hard for his shots,” said Churchill head coach Matt Miller. “Dom did that, and when the shots did come, [Senou] wasn’t in his usual rhythm.”

The Bulldogs also dominated the boards by a 30-16 margin “against a great rebounding team,” according to Miller, whose team was led in the rebounding column by senior Kyle Edwards and junior Bryant Wheatley (6 each).

To go with the tenacious defense and strong rebounding, the Bulldogs enjoyed their best shooting performance of the season. They went 28 for 46 from the floor (61 percent) and made 70 percent of their two-point field goals (26 for 37).

Senior Sam Edens again paced the Bulldogs attack with 13 points followed by Williams, who added 11. Edwards and sophomore Matt Moshyedi scored nine points each. Contributing to the balanced scoring attack were sophomore Allan Njumbe (8 points), senior Christian Bonaparte (4), sophomore Malik Harris (3), junior Hugues Massala, and seniors Louis Rothstein, Quan Gill, George Nichols and Thomas Geenen (2 points each). Geenen also chipped in five rebounds and a team-high four assists.

Churchill hits the road on Friday to face Walter Johnson, which is 5-5 and nothing like the team the Bulldogs beat six consecutive times over the previous two seasons.

“Walter Johnson is a much improved team this year,” assessed Miller. “They are more athletic and they have a new coach, and they are playing hard for their new coach. They gym is going to be packed and loud. They would like nothing more than to knock us off, so we’ll have to be prepared to play our best basketball.”

With Churchill’s win over Richard Montgomery, the Bulldogs recorded their 50th win under four-year coach Matt Miller who is now 50-32 (.610 winning percentage) at Churchill. Also on Tuesday night, the Bulldogs’ JV boys rolled past Richard Montgomery, 81-59.