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No. 3 Centennial boys stay hot, handle No. 5 Arbor View

Junior Jayonni Durrough scored 30 points to propel the Centennial boys basketball team to its 11th straight victory, an 89-71 road win over Arbor View on Wednesday night.

Centennial (18-1, 5-0 Class 5A Southern League), No. 3 in the Review-Journal’s 5A rankings, beat Arbor View (14-7, 4-2) by an average of 16.5 points in their previous two meetings this year. On Wednesday, a strong first and third quarter were all the Bulldogs needed to pull out another victory.

Durrough went to work from the opening tip, scoring Centennial’s first seven points, though the Aggies managed an early 10-8 lead.

Junior Cooper Jenkins then scored the game’s next 11 points, including a 3-pointer and four consecutive free throws following a technical foul from an Arbor View player. Jenkins finished with 15 points.

Centennial left the first quarter with a 20-12 lead and was able to extend the advantage to 12 in the second. However, back-to-back 3s from sophomores Ien Kirkland and Cassius Britt brought Arbor View within four points with a minute left before halftime.

“We got too into the crowd, so we started taking bad shot after bad shot,” Centennial coach Karen Weitz said. “I told them, ‘Let’s get back to playing basketball the correct way and don’t take bad shots because of the crowd.’”

Luckily for Centennial, the ball again found Durrough, who polished off the last of his 13 first-half points with a three-point play to put the Bulldogs up 38-31 at halftime.

Durrough opened the third quarter just as he started the first, as he scored or assisted on Centennial’s first eight points.

With the third quarter coming to a close, the Bulldogs ripped off an 11-0 run to take a 67-47 lead into the fourth. A 3 from junior Zyon Harris and an emphatic dunk from Durrough highlighted Centennial’s dominant run.

“The first and third quarters are big for us,” Weitz said. “We have struggled in the third quarter so it’s been a focus for us, and I thought we did well today.”

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