Three spree: Perry, Beyer down Davis with outside shooting, defense

Share the ball. Swarm the ball. Swish the ball.

The Beyer boys basketball team executed coach Kyle McKim’s wish list to near perfection in an 84-53 victory over Davis on Wednesday night.

The Patriots tallied season highs in points and three-pointers (16), and forced the Spartans to turn the ball over at every turn.

“We were due for a game like this,” McKim said. “We haven’t been shooting the ball well by our standards. We put in some extra work this week, getting shots up in practice. It was a group effort.”

Beyer (18-5, 9-1) has won four in a row to stay on the heels of Modesto Christian (21-1, 10-0), which owns a one-game cushion in the Modesto Metro Conference standings. The teams will meet Feb. 12 at Beyer.

The Crusaders won the first meeting handily, 69-28, but McKim hopes Wednesday’s victory in front of home fans was a sign of things to come.

It certainly helps to have a shooter like Brian Perry, who has shouldered the scoring load since point guard Georgie Dancer suffered a season-ending knee injury on Jan. 22.

Perry tallied 19 points on six three-pointers, drawing “best I’ve ever coached” superlatives from McKim. In his last three games, the 5-foot-11 junior with the shaggy ’do is averaging 22.5 points per game.

“He’s playing with confidence,” McKim said. “We needed him to step up in a new role. We needed him to become a scorer and he’s stepped up big time.”

Give Perry this: While he may be quick to shoot, he’s happy to share the attention and success with his teammates.

“It wasn’t just me,” he said as guards Chris Alonzo and Tanner Gentry shuffled past him. “We were sharing the ball and everyone was making shots.”

Eleven players scored for the Patriots, who topped the 80-point plateau for the first time since a season-opening 80-41 victory over Edison of Stockton.

DeAngelo Dancer had 16 points on four three-pointers, Alonzo totaled 10 off the bench, and freshman point guard Dom Dancer scored nine.

The Patriots peeled away late in the first half, outscoring the Spartans 18-0 over a three-minute, 14-second span. Perry started the barrage with back-to-back three-pointers.

Sam Leventini, Gentry and Alonzo also had three-pointers for the Patriots, who scored most of their points off turnovers.

At the start of the run, Davis led 27-22 on the strength of a Brandon Gray three-pointer and a putback by Talolo Limu-Jones. By halftime, though, the Patriots built a 42-31 advantage.

The sputtering Spartans turned the ball over 13 times in the half, including seven in the second quarter.

Beyer’s defensive philosophy was simple: Swarm and trap at each level of the floor, and use its depth and speed to negate the Spartans’ height advantage.

“Ideally, we want to play like that all the time,” McKim said. “We’re not big, so we want to force tempo. Our goal is to make it a fast game. We can go 10 (players) deep. You can’t play that way if you only go five deep.”

In its last two trips to Beyer, Davis has witnessed the top shooting displays in program history. The Patriots buried a school-record 17 three-pointers in a 88-57 home win over the Spartans on Jan. 9, 2015.

“We always seem to shoot well at home,” Perry said. “We have this confidence because we shoot so much here. It’s tough to play us at home.”

The Spartans were paced by Limu-Jones, who had 19 points and seven rebounds hours after signing a letter of intent to play football at Eastern Washington.

His hoop game isn’t so bad, either. Limu-Jones helped Davis get off to a fast start with seven points in the first quarter. He beat the buzzer with a steal and one-handed dunk to give the Spartans a 17-13 cushion.

Forwards E.J Jackson and Tre Bryant had nine and seven points, respectively, but combined for just two points in the second half.

Gray also had nine for the Spartans, now 13-8 overall and 6-4 in conference play. Despite the loss, Davis sits comfortably in third place. Its only losses are to state-ranked Modesto Christian and Beyer, whose next meeting could decide the MMC championship.

“Hopefully we can make another 16 threes,” McKim said.

This story was originally published February 4, 2016 at 12:00 AM with the headline "Three spree: Perry, Beyer down Davis with outside shooting, defense."