LINDEN — North Montgomery’s defense locked in and the offense clicked down the stretch in a 44-21 win over Fountain Central on Tuesday.
The Chargers (1-0) overcame a slow start to lead 16-12 at the half and outscored the Mustangs (0-1) 28-9 in the second half.
“I thought the kids played really really hard and kind of settled in during that second half,” North Montgomery coach Chad Arnold said. “We’ve got a long way to go (defensively), but we play hard and that’s what won that game.”
Cameron Enlow led the Chargers with 16 points, including a pair of 3-pointers in the fourth quarter. North Montgomery exploded for 20 points over the final eight minutes and connected on 5-of-7 from deep.
As North Montgomery’s offense heated up, Fountain Central’s stayed cold in the second half. The Mustangs were just 7-of-33 for the game — making just two field goals in the second half. After Gabe McCollum scored early in the third quarter, the Mustangs went nearly 11 minutes without a field goal and a total of 8:28 in the second half without scoring a single point.
“They did a good job defensively, but we had open looks that we didn’t make,” Fountain Central coach Greg Dean said. “The one big constant in basketball is you have to make shots, and tonight we didn’t make those shots.”
Fountain Central especially struggled from beyond the arc — making just 2-of-17 long shots.
North Montgomery’s offense sputtered in the first half with Kelby Harwood on the bench with foul trouble, but the senior’s court-vision helped open things up in the second half.
“When he (Harwood) gets down hill, people are coming,” Arnold said. “He did a really good job finding shooters and we hit some big shots.”
Harwood added 10 points for the Chargers, while Colten Arnold chipped in seven.
Dean felt like the Mustangs played well enough defensively to win, but the lapses offensively cost them.
“I thought we guarded for the most part to win a basketball game, but we turned it over too many times and they were free run turnovers where they got buckets and that’s kind of where they opened it up,” Dean said.
Fountain Central turned it over 15 times in the loss.
Eli Foxworthy led the Mustangs with eight points.
