Devils run past Streaks

At the first hint of trouble, Avon Park coach Luther Clemons loosened the top button on his white dress shirt and disposed of his tie.

A dry-erase board hit the court and a message rang out amidst the chaos:

"They cannot win this game!" he screamed to his players seated on the bench, towels thrown over their shoulders. "This is our game!"

No worries, Coach: The Red Devils are off to their best start in 13 years.

Avon Park weathered a contentious fourth quarter to deal Sebring yet another setback Thursday night, beating the Blue Streaks 78-67 in front of a standing-room-only crowd in the Red Devils gym.

"This was our first test," Red Devils assistant coach Alvin Conner said. "All of our games haven't been close, and this was a game that we knew Sebring wasn't going to lay down, they were going to fight, claw and scratch.

"It was a good test for us to test our resilience."

Especially during the fourth quarter.

There was a brief on-court altercation. Two heckling fans were ejected. A toddler walked onto the court.

But in the end, the Avon Park faithful loudly boasted: "Go home, Sebring! Go home!"

"This was all new to us," said Connor, whose Red Devils had outscored their past five opponents by an average of 25 points, "but we handled it well. We just need a little more discipline and to get it under control."

Avon Park had four players score in double figures, led by Van'Derkel Clayton's 19 points. Alonzo Robertson scored 11 of his 15 points in the fourth quarter, Avierre Conner added 14 and Tekovan Miller had 12 for the Red Devils, who improved to 9-0 for the first time since 1996.

The Red Devils closed the second quarter on an 8-0 run to take a 35-26 lead into halftime - and they never looked back.

Sebring threw a bevy of post players at Robertson, the Red Devils' main interior threat, and effectively shut him down in the first half, holding him to two points. No matter: Avon Park turned to their wealth of perimeter shooters, most notably Clayton, who knocked down four first-half 3-pointers.

"I knew of him," Sebring coach Princeton Harris said, "and when he gets on a roll, he can really shoot it."

About the only consistent components of the Sebring offense on Thursday night were freshman guard Marcus Dewberry, who scored a game-high 23 points, and 6-foot-8 forward Robert Campbell, whose monstrous two-handed dunks only temporarily spurred an otherwise sputtering offense.

As it has all season, Avon Park caught fire in the third quarter to open up a 56-40 lead at the end of the period, after running off three consecutive uncontested layups.

Things got testy in the fourth, when Conner and Sebring's Devin Clarke exchanged words after a foul. Both coaches ran onto the court to separate the two players, then retreated to their respective benches as the technical fouls were assessed.

That's when Clemons rolled up his sleeves, lost the patterned tie and waited for his team to respond to the adversity.

"We knew they'd make a run," Alvin Conner said, "and we knew they were going to come back. We just didn't know how we would respond."

Avon Park's defiant answer - quite well - surprised even the coaches.

The Red Devils knocked down free throws when they needed to and never allowed Sebring to draw closer than nine points over the final 5 minutes to seal the non-district victory.

"When you're having a lot of success, teams are going to come after you," Alvin Conner said. "We've just got to keep our composure."

Sebring, meanwhile, dropped to 2-5 and won't play again until the Taveniere Tournament on Dec. 28.

"We got a little tired," Harris said. "It was an up and down game, and both teams were getting after each other. We've just got to keep on playing. We're turning a corner, and I don't want to peak early. They're on the rise, though."