The second of three championship games on day four features the Prolific Prep Crew against the Word of God Holy Rams.
How They Got Here
Word of God churned out a tough opening round win against Raleigh Christian on Wednesday night, using a balanced scoring attack including four players with 12 or more points. They played without Mekhi Grant in that opening game and RCA’s bigs were able to capitalize on the lack of interior strength. The Holy Rams learned from that performance and were able to hold WSCS’ main three front court players to a combined 21 points on 7/19 shooting from the field. The 60-57 win over the Lions was impressive and WoG will hope that those signs will carry over into the championship game.
Prolific Prep have had a hot start to the tournament, scoring 83 and 81 points in their first two games. Prolific took their lumps against nationally-ranked Combine Academy and ended up winning the game on the interior. The elite guard play of Aden Holloway and Trey Green led the way for Yves Missi, Michael Nwoko, and Tyran Stokes to score off the ball.
Keys for Word of God
Word of God has the guard talent and size to matchup well with the Crew. They will need to win the interior battle, similar to their win over Winston-Salem Christian. Mayar Wol, Mekhi Grant, and Jamal Brown will need to contain the likes of Michael Nwoko and Yves Missi. The good thing is that the big WoG guard’s matchup well with the small Aden Holloway and Trey Green.
Keys for Prolific Prep
The inverse to WoG’s keys, Prolific will need to dominate the paint to win this game. If at least two of Nwoko, Stokes, and Missi have a big game, it’s going to be very hard for the Crew to lose. They’ll most likely be in a hostile environment, given Raleigh’s affinity to Word of God and their relationship to the tournament.
Matchup To Watch
Mayar Wol against Tyran Stokes, Freddie Dilione against Aden Holloway, Isaiah Coleman against Trey Green, Mekhi Grant against Michael Nwoko, you can pick any of these matchups and call them the most important to the outcome of the game. These teams’ matchup extremely well on paper, with two of the most talented rosters in the country. One or two of these players are going to cement their name in tournament history. We won’t know until tomorrow night at 6:30.