Gaston College basketball now 2-0 after impressive road victory

Gaston College's basketball team passed its first road test with flying colors on Tuesday night.

Facing a Division II Cleveland Community College team coming off impressive back-to-back wins over two National Junior College Athletic Association Division I teams in Region 17, the Rhinos led for all but 90 seconds of an impressive 108-78 win.

Gaston College improved to 2-0 by taking an 11-point halftime lead then pushing ahead by as many as 34 before taking the 30-point victory.

"We did a good job of imposing our will over the full 40 minutes," Rhinos coach Benny Moss said. "Regardless of the groups that we put in, we continued to play hard.
"Now we had some lapses; We gave up too many offensive rebounds and made too many turnovers in the first half. But, for the most part, it was really good opportunity on the road against a team that had a lot of success last weekend.
"So, to come out with a win like this says a lot about our guys and their effort."

Twelve of the 14 Gaston College players who saw action produced points with five reaching double figures and two others tallying eight or more points.

Sophomore center Kaleb Siler led the way with a double-double of 19 points and 16 rebounds.

Other standouts were sophomores E.J. Joyner (17 points, 7 rebounds, 9 assists), J.R. Watson (17 points, 4 assists, 3 steals), Spencer Breeden (12 points), Ryan Evans (10 points, 10 rebounds), Jozohn Price (9 points, 3 assists) and DeAngelo Canty (8 points).

"With this group, we've got a lot of depth," Moss said. "As long as they keep buying into the concept of the team being bigger than the individual, we could be a really good team."

Gaston College continues a challenging opening part of its schedule with a pair of games this weekend at Catawba Valley Community College on Friday and Saturday; The Rhinos face the host Red Hawks at 8 p.m. on Friday then play Roane State Community College of Tennessee at 1 p.m. on Saturday.

"We're playing three games in five days this week and starting the season with four game in the first eight days," Moss said. "So we're going to need every one of them playing well."