By james art 
Chesapeake – Oscar Smith extended his won basketball series for boys over the Nansemond River to 12 games in a row – but barely.
The tigers (13-1) had to support a team of scandalous warriors, which is fighting a two-digit deficit to make it interesting.
But in the end, the fifth ranked tigers kept winning No. 11 on the Nansemond 60-55 River in front of a nice crowd that included several Penn football coaches, including chief coach James Franklin. They were in the city to see Oscar star Smith Star Travis Johnson, who is also excellent on the basketball court.
And Johnson, who has more than 35 offers and is not unfulfilled and the tigers did not disappoint.
Oscar Smith scored the first seven points of the game, after which he led 9-1 and 16-6 while the Nansemond River fought. The warriors made only 2 out of 9 fires with five rpm.
The Nansemond River, which has not defeated Oscar Smith since 2013, uses an 18-6 jump in the second quarter to climb back into the game. The leading road was Taron Atwatter, who scored 11 of his team 16 points during this quarter.
The warriors (9-4) also received help from Christian Jordan, who finished with 14 points and five thefts, as they went to the tigers 26-25 at the half.
It will be more back -back in the second half, as the tigers could not pull away.
Every time the warriors scored, the tigers found an answer.
The key was the fourth quarter when Oscar Smith held Warriors to 5-from-17 shooting.
“The crime will be an insult. But I told them we had to do better defense work and compete with every shot they make, “said Oscar coach Smith Lavar Griffin. “And it happened in the fourth quarter. We generally fastened. We entered their faces a little more. ”
Offensively, Oscar Smith was led by Jacoby Harper, who scored a game of high games. Tigers also received help from Cameron Walters, which was 6 for 6 of the free throws in the fourth quarter.
But the two thunderstorms of Johnson, including one with 29 seconds, helped give the tigers a five -point lead.
“He’s just an athlete,” Griffin told Johnson, who finished with 14 points. “He always sparks him for us in some way. It may be blocked, it may be immersion, but that’s what it does. He also did a good job of delaying in the second half. He is just a good athlete and this is shown on the football field and the basketball court. ”