Last Friday night in Eatonton, the Gatewood Gators earned a 72-53 victory over the Trinity Christian Crusaders while delivering to head coach Don Keiser his 300th career win as a high school basketball coach.
With an 85-15 record since coming to Gatewood four years ago, it came on his 100th game leading the Gators.
“Pretty wild,” Keiser said immediately after the game. “Exciting, but I guess it also means you’ve been around a little while. But to do it with my son (Kaden) on the team as a senior, that’s pretty cool, too.”
Led by junior Matt Allen, who was honored before the home crowd for scoring his 2,000th high school career point last week on the road, the Gators were up 21-8 after the opening quarter and led 40-24 at the half.
In addition to contributing 41 points to the Gators’ total for the night, Allen was tasked with defending against Anthony Frank-Woji, Trinity’s top points-getter.
“I told Matt he couldn’t foul, but I thought we could get him (Frank-Woji) in foul trouble, and that’s exactly what happened,” Keiser said after the game. “Once he got four fouls, I told Matt to just keep taking it to him because he couldn’t do anything then, and that’s exactly what happened.”
Allen finished the night with just one foul to his name.
On a night when Gatewood’s senior athletes in fall sports were honored at halftime, senior JT Gregory and sophomore Landon Moreno each contributed nine points to the Gators’ total, and six were credited to senior Ames Johnson, five to Kaden Keiser, and the final two points to senior Jake Rich.
“Yeah, our seniors came to play tonight,” coach Keiser acknowledged after giving each the start for the game. “I was happy for each of them.”
However, Keiser admitted he was unhappy to see a recurring problem for the Gators, who came out firing in the opening quarter but seemed to let off midway through the second. It prompted him to call a timeout to get his guys back in the game.
“We were getting too loose, sloppy. But that’s been our M.O. all year. We get up 18, 20 points, and then we let them right back in it because we get sloppy. We throw it away, we take a bad shot, we don’t hustle back, and that’s what we’ve been doing. But I do think we are getting better about it,” he said. “We’re getting quicker, so that’s good.”
With a 15-4 overall record and 4-2 in the region, the Gators currently sit third in Class AA Region 2 standings with just three regular-season games left to be at home in Eatonton.
The Gators will next tip-off against non-region Westfield on Tuesday (past press time) before taking on region leader Brentwood at 7:30 p.m. Friday. The regular season finale will be against second-place Central Fellowship Christian Academy at 7:30 p.m. next Tuesday.
Gatewood will be looking for payback and a chance to move up the rankings after falling to Brentwood and CFCA on the road earlier this season.