ANNA — Without much flow to the offense, Gainesville turned to David Moore and the junior guard did a little bit of everything.
“Our offense runs through him. When he turns it up he can do anything he wants to,” Leopards head coach Eric Johns said. “Any time we needed a big shot he came through.”
Moore came close to a triple-double — 20 points, nine rebounds and seven assists — as Gainesville defeated Van Alstyne, 47-31, in a Class 3A Region II bi-district game on Monday night.
Gainesville (24-8), which won its playoff opener for the second straight season, will face Wilmer-Hutchins in the area round at 7:30 p.m. on Friday at Newman Smith.
If Van Alstyne (11-19) was going to advance, the Panthers needed to make Gainesville adjust to them. With a contrast in styles it allowed Van Alstyne to hang around despite its offensive struggles.
“We couldn’t win a pretty game. We knew if we got in a track meet we’d be in trouble,” Van Alstyne head coach Joe McCullough said.
Early on the grinding pace favored the Panthers, who had a 10-8 advantage after the first quarter and led by five early in the second. Gainesville then went on a 15-1 run — keyed by three-pointers from D.J. Harris, Jonathan Mendez and Denzel Johnson — and took a 23-17 lead at half-time.
Van Alstyne managed just one basket in the frame and the woes carried over to the third quarter, when Kyle Pickett’s lay-in was the only made Panthers shot in that eight-minute stretch.
“The defensive effort is not what beat us,” McCullough said. “We’ve struggled offensively but we’ve been good enough defensively to stay in games.”
Gainesville wasn’t able to take total advantage and led by just eight points with a little more than seven minutes remaining. But the Leopards then ripped off nine straight points, including a tipped rebound pass from Moore to Johnson to start the spurt.
“We’re a fast-break team, not a slow-it-down team,” Johns said. “We didn’t get going until the fourth quarter, clicking like we usually do.”
Harris added 12 points while Mendez and Johnson chipped in seven points each for Gainesville, which forced 18 Panthers turnovers.
Michael Sorrels led Van Alstyne with 14 points but 12 of them came in the first 16 minutes. The Leopards switch things up and had Harris shadow him the rest of the way.
“He was our focus in the second half. We tried to make sure he didn’t get any open looks,” Johns said. “D.J. does a really good job getting in people’s faces.”
Outside of Sorrcls, Michael Marr had five points and C.J. White grabbed nine rebounds for Van Alstyne.
“That’s tough when you rely on one guy,” McCullough said. “It’s kinda feast or famine.”
