Flight Elevate Over Dazzle

Playing for the second time in 20 hours, the Dazzle was anything but the team that routed Columbus on Saturday night at the Roanoke Civic Center. And the Flight took full advantage, downing Roanoke 73-63 to end the Dazzle's three-game winning streak.

Huntsville (7-12), which ended an NBDL season-long losing streak of seven games Friday with a two-overtime win at league-leading North Charleston, took a 38-28 halftime lead. The decisive minutes were the final three in the first half, when coach Bob Thornton’s club ballooned the advantage from one to 13 points.

“We just didn’t have any gas in our tanks,” said Dazzle coach Kent Davison, whose team finished a 15-game December with a 6-9 record. “We shot horribly, for us (40.7 percent) and we had way too many turnovers again (21). It simply goes back to the number of games we’ve played in a short period of time, and this back-to-back 18 hours after we played was just too much for us.”

Huntsville outrebounded the Dazzle 41-30 and got scoring from 10 players, led by forward Shelly Clark’s double-double of 11 points and 10 rebounds. Roanoke was led by backup guard Andre McCollum, who scored 22 points off the bench.

The Dazzle’s starting guards, Artie Griffin and Danny Earl, were a combined 3-for-15 from the floor, and Earl and McCollum combined for 11 turnovers.

“We just couldn’t get anything going,” Davison said. “They were running around us, they had fresher legs and they outrebounded us time and again. You hope you can muster up enough energy to just get through one more day, but I guess it wasn’t to be.

“Look at our shots. Most of them were short. Now, we’ve got three days to get it back. Our point guards have really not been our problem, turning the ball over. Tonight, they were. Like they say, tired legs lead to tired minds.”

Thornton hadn’t been discouraged by his team’s play even during its losing skid. He was thrilled to go 2-0 on the road trip.

“We’d been in every loss we had during our (seven-game) losing streak,” Thornton said. “We’ve had the lead or been tied in the fourth quarter. We just recently started playing much better together. When we execute, we’re a better team, and we finish ballgames. This one, we finished. It’s another learning step for us.

“When Roanoke went small it kind of played into our hands, because we have a lot of guards and a lot of options. Our rotations were perfect today. We talked about it in practice and they did an excellent job. Considering we lost seven in a row our attitude was fantastic. We knew we were very close to being a really good team. We had our bad slide. Now, we can get back into the mix.”

Clark said Huntsville was encouraged early in the game when it was able to step out consistently and take away the Dazzle’s permeter game. Roanoke had six 3-point goals, but it was the fewest hoops behind the arc for the Dazzle in seven games.

“When we’re on a streak, it’s difficult for other teams to play us,” Clark said. “Once you have a team working together, it can be hard to beat. Two in a row (wins) is better than seven in a row (losses). We always felt like we could win. We’ll just build on this and keep going.”

Davison tried to match the Flight’s quickness by playing a lineup with four players 6-foot-5 and smaller, but not even those mostly perimeter performers had any get-up-and-go.

“It wasn’t even a 24-hour turnaround, and I knew from the start we were in trouble, even though we started on top,” said Dazzle forward Marshall Phillips, who finished with 14 points and eight rebounds. “My legs were going the first three minutes of the game. They took advantage of that with their quickness. They beat us to the boards, they beat us to the ball.

“When you’re in that situation, when you’re tired, you just hope the ball goes in. And you pray. You pray a lot.”

The Dazzle, which hasn’t had a three-day stretch without a game since Dec. 4-6, finishes a five-game Civic Center homestand against Asheville on Thursday, January 3 at 7 p.m. The Flight heads home for a Wednesday, January 2 game against a hot Mobile club.