Cole Boyer ’24 threw up a lob that was intended to be an alley-oop Tuesday but had the presence of mind to keep trailing the play.
Sure enough, a rebound came back down into the senior’s hands, who stuck it back in for two of his team-high 14 points. For better or worse, it was that kind of night for Christ School basketball, who took care of the fundamentals and turned up the defensive heat on Rabun Gap for a 69-39 home win.
The Greenies (21-5, 7-0) are outright champions in the Carolinas Athletic Association for the first time since 2018 because of a big night from Cole – a 6-foot-1 guard from Marietta, Ga., who has started much of the season – and the play of Keenan Wilkins ’24 (11 points), Bryson Cokley ’24 (10), Mikey Wilkins ’25 (eight), Jamari Briggs ’24 (eight), Madden Collins ’25 (six), Lleyton Thomas-Johnson ’24 (four), Mason Collins ’28 (four), Jozohn Price ’24 (two), and T.J. Hamilton ’24 (two).
“Nights like tonight, our defense can hold us a little bit,” Christ School coach Josh Coley said.
“We didn’t make shots early on. We were sluggish yesterday in practice. We normally go on Sundays and we didn’t (to recover from Saturday’s 101-65 win over visiting Durham Academy). Being sluggish in practice yesterday carried over to the first six minutes of the game. At halftime we talked about it, ‘shots aren’t going in, now what?’ When the shots go in, it looks amazing. But when they’re not going in, we’ve got to do the other stuff, the little things. They responded and they did it. I don’t think anyone hung their head, they just kept playing and that’s what we need to do consistently.”
The Greenies have won their CAA games by an average of 30.6 points and led the Eagles (5-14, 1-3) by as many as 18 in a low-scoring first half. Things picked up a little in the third and fourth quarters, but it was still a far cry from Saturday when Christ School nearly blew the circuits out of the scoreboards in the Greenie Dome.
Yes, the team went on to win a state championship last year, but the Greenies had to settle for a three-way tie in the CAA standings with Rabun Gap and Asheville School. So, no one was in the mood for sharing again.
With a two-game lead in the conference, Christ School finishes out CAA play Thursday at home against Asheville School.
“A conference championship was a goal that we set,” Coach Coley said.
“Coming into year, there was a lot of talk about a state championship, but once we got together as a team, winning the conference was something we talked about because we hadn’t won the conference outright (in Coach Coley’s three seasons). We wanted to win it, and we felt like winning it would be the first step to us starting to compete and win big games. Hopefully if we win Thursday night, we’ll have a chance to celebrate it a little bit.”
JV Greenies 43, Rabun Gap 24
Backcourt play was the key to victory in the JV game, where points came at a premium as well.
Christ School (8-4, 4-1) led 15-7 after the first quarter, 23-12 at halftime, and 34-16 entering the fourth quarter. The JV Greenies got back in the win column behind Henry Chapman ‘25 (nine points), Drew Hykin ‘26 (eight), Jayden White ‘26 (eight), Levi Ellison ‘27 (six), Brody Ballard ‘25 (five), Hunter Sanford ‘25 (three), Jad Traboulsi ‘25 (two), and Alonzo Garcia Nunez ‘26 (two).