Gaston College drops season-opener at No. 1-ranked Davidson-Davie Community College

Gaston College went toe-to-toe with the No. 1-ranked team in the National Junior College Athletic Association on the road on Saturday afternoon.

But Davidson-Davie scored seven of the game's last nine points to take a hard-fought 89-83 victory.

Not only was it the Rhinos' 2024-25 season opener, it was Gaston College's head coaching debut of Benny Moss.

"We competed and gave ourselves a chance to win on the road at the No. 1 team in the country without two of our top players, including our most highly-recruited player," said Moss, whose team was without guard Jordan Brown and 6-foot-7 forward Ben Stevens due to injury. "Jordan Brown is being actively recruited by 14 Division Is, so I am happy that guys stepped up in his absence and gave us a big lift."

The Rhinos roared out to a 12-4 lead in the game's first 4 1/2 minutes before the pace of a game that lasted 2 1/2 hours was slowed by 58 total fouls (with four players fouling out) and 80 total free throws.

Davidson-Davie has won the last four Region 10 Division II championships and advanced to the NJCAA Division II national tournament each of those years highlighted by runner-up finishes in 2021 and 2022 and a third-place finish a year ago.

With a roster of three returning players from last year, Gaston College's debut saw the Rhinos push the top-ranked Storm in front of a capacity crowd at their Brinkley Gym homecourt.

Davidson-Davie went on a 16-1 surge in the middle of the first half to take a 28-17 lead, then Gaston College rallied to knot the score at 40 with 1:45 left in the opening half before facing a 45-40 halftime deficit.

The host Storm continued its first half momentum to lead by as many as 13 points at 54-41 with 17:52 to play before the Rhinos crept closer and closer down the stretch.

Gaston College closed with 71-68 with 8:21 to play and was even closer at 82-81 with 1:07 left before Davidson-Davie scored on its last four offensive possessions to take the six-point victory.

For the Rhinos, sophomore Tyheim Love (17 points, 4 rebounds), freshman Landon Sprouse (16 points, 4 rebounds), freshman E.J. Joyner (15 points, 4 rebounds, 4 assists), freshman Ryan Evans (13 points, 15 rebounds), Jozohn Price (12 points, 5 rebounds) and Judah Ravenell (10 points, 4 rebounds) led a balanced attack in which 11 players saw action.

"Our kids competed and competed hard," said Moss, the former Charlotte 49ers and Pfeiffer standout player who also coached at Charlotte and was a head coach at UNC Wilmington and Coastal Carolina before coming to Gaston College. "We got off to a good start. But we've got to sustain our effort one possession at a time for the entire 40 minutes.
"We had too many segments where we let down. When you play a good team like Davidson-Davie, you can't do that. We've just got to clean up the letdowns we had."

Gaston College returns to action on Wednesday night at 7:30 p.m. against Patrick & Henry Community College at Gastonia's Ashbrook High School gymnasium in their 2024-25 home opener.

"We're hoping we'll get a good crowd," Moss said. "Hopefully, some Gaston College students and some Gaston County basketball fans will show up to support our program. And we're playing a really good team. They're comparable to Davidson-Davie because they're competed at a high level and were ranked last year.
"So we showed signs today that we're headed in the right direction. We've just got to build and get better this week in practice and protect our homecourt on Wednesday."