Mallard Creek leads Wire to Wire in 54-44 Victory over Butler

In an early season showdown of two of the top teams in the city, Mallard Creek, led by explosive freshman <strong>Samiyah Suffren</strong>, outlasted Butler 54-44 last night to move to 2-0 on the young season.  Suffren, a mainstay on last year's Ridge Road Middle School team that was arguably the greatest collection of talent ever assembled on a Charlotte Middle School roster, scored 10 of Creek's first 12 points and finished with a game high 21 points. While the Mavericks winning isn't unusual, the manner in which they won doesn't bode well for other teams in the area,  Mallard Creek won while playing in the half court which isn't their forte'.  While the Mavericks have effective bigs in senior <strong>Hali Doctor,</strong> junior <strong>Gabby Haynes</strong>, and freshman<strong> Jada Creech</strong>, they are clearly more potent in an uptempo game.  Suffren is going to be the most athletic player on the floor in almost every game she plays. Wake Forest commit <strong>Neveah Brown</strong> is a smooth, controlled, athletic player (see the ridiculous block with 45 seconds left that sealed Butler's fate) who flourishes in a 94 foot game. Ironically, this was supposed to be a rebuilding year for the Mavericks after losing all time conference scoring leader <strong>Dazia Lawrence</strong> to graduation and UNCC.  With little returning scoring and 4 freshman (Suffren, Creech, Ashley Fowler and Kairah Booker) making the team and expected to play prominent roles, most pundits felt this was the year to get Mallard Creek if you were going to get them.  Obviously Clarence Johnson's crew has answered that with an emphatic, "THINK AGAIN!" In fairness to Butler, they did lose senior leader and PG <strong>Ashlynn Dotson</strong> to a lower body injury.  Midway through the second quarter Dotson was defending and got her feet tangled and appeared to suffer a mid foot or ankle sprain.  She did not return.  Butler, already thin with only a 9 woman roster, actually did a very good job of slowing the game down and even cut the lead to 3 early in the 4th quarter thanks in large part 6'1" senior F/C Michaela Lane who stood out with a team high 17 points and 13 rebounds for Coach Mark Sanders' squad. In the end though, it was too much Suffren, too much Brown and too much much team speed and clutch foul shooting for the Bulldogs to overcome.  I have only seen brief glimpses of Vance at the Super Scrimmage held at Providence Day back on November 2nd, but right now, Mallard Creek and Hopewell look like the teams to beat in the I-Meck this year. Regardless, this is setting up to be a fabulous season for girls hoops in the Charlotte metro.