Carter starts hot, gets hotter as Chester rolls

LEBANON >> The only thing sick about the Chester Clippers Friday night was their shooting.

Fueled by senior Ahrod Carter’s 27-point performance on 10-of-12 sniping from the floor, Chester blew by Milton Hershey School 72-53 in the first round of the PIAA Class 5A tournament at Lebanon High School.

Never trailing, Chester (22-5), a lower-than-usual fifth seed out of District 1, smothered Milton Hershey with a 15-4 spurt to open the game, and was never seriously threatened. Carter hit a trio of 3-pointers in the first quarter to quickly get his club out of the gates.

Then he really warmed up.

Carter would hit his first 10 shots of the night, from all points on the floor, before missing his final two offerings. He hit seven 3-pointers; Chester had nine bombs in all.

PHOTO GALLERY: Chester vs. Milton Hershey

“I felt great. I felt blessed. I felt like hard work paid off,” Carter said. “This was a statement game for us, because we lost in districts and think we should have won, in my opinion. So we had a chip on our shoulders this game. We felt like we had to prove something; to ourselves, to everyone.”

Having dispatched Milton Hershey (21-6), the third seed out of District 3, Chester’s next opponent Tuesday will be Hershey High, the same district’s 10th seed which upset District 1 champ Penncrest Friday night.

Making it’s first-round victory all the more impressive, the Clippers had four players missing from practice for the better part of a week after becoming ill.

“We only had eight guys for practice all week, not since this Wednesday, but last Wednesday,” Chester head coach Larry Yarbray said. “Guys going to the ER, temperatures with 103 … but we made no excuses. You’ve got to fight through the adversity. And we get to play again on Tuesday. That’s our focus.”

Chester’s showing was so thorough, so dominant, that Milton Hershey did not clock consecutive baskets until there was less than a minute to play in the third quarter, when consecutive layups by Spartan big man Chris Sampson made it a 52-33 contest. But that was about it.

“This is our time of year,” Yarbray said. “We prepare for this, with our schedule and the type of teams we play, going on the road with no fans to support us there, doing what we need to do. Our guys executed, they played together, they played good defense. You do those three things, you can win a lot of games.”

Chester got inside scoring from big men James Sudan (15 points) and Jordan Camper (10), a key component in keeping Milton Hershey’s defense honest.

The Clippers opened the game with an 11-2 run on a pair of Carter 3-pointers and baskets from Brian Randolph (8 points) and Sudan, forcing the Spartans to call the first of several timeouts with 3:53 left in the opening quarter. But out of the timeout, it became apparent that whatever was discussed would not slow down Chester on this night.

Chester’s lead reached 35-23 at the half; its biggest margin of the night was 52-29 just prior to Sampson’s consecutive baskets.