The Panther Creek men’s basketball team kicked off the 2013-14 season with four straight road games. All four of those games ended in Catamount victories, all of which were by double digit margins. Juan Munoz (14.5 ppg), Malachi Paige (13.5 ppg), Nubian Spann (13.2 ppg), and Gaqwez Hudson (11.2 ppg) all averaged double-digit points over the four-game stretch. The balance expressed on the stat sheet also showed on the court, making the Catamounts too tough to defend for their outmatched opponents.

The first of the four road wins was a 79-37 throttling of the Rolesville High School Rams. Nubian Spann finished with a game-high twenty-one points to go along with Malachi Paige’s seventeen points. The second victory came against the Cleveland Rams by an equally impressive score of 73-38. Four Catamount players reached double-digit scoring for the game.

After the wide margins of victory in the first two games, the Catamounts took a two-game trip out to Durham to take their competition level up a notch. Panther Creek defeated the Southern Durham Spartans 51-38 for the third victory of the season. Gaqwez Hudson led all scorers with fourteen points in a game where points were hard to come by. The points struggle by the Catamounts, however, would not be extended into the next game.

The Catamounts next opponents were the Jordan Falcons. Last season, Jordan defeated Panther Creek twice in basketball, the second of which the Catamounts fell just short of upsetting the then one-seed Falcons in the first round of the playoffs. This time around, the Catamounts would not be taken down. After Panther Creek held a seventeen-point lead in regulation, Jordan staged a comeback and sent the game to overtime. From there it was all Catamounts, outscoring the Falcons by twelve points in overtime to clinch a 71-59 victory. Point guard Juan Munoz put together the best performance of any Catamount player this season, scoring twenty-four points. Malachi Paige also added fifteen points to help Panther Creek exact their revenge on the Falcons.

The victory over Jordan gave the Catamounts closure from last season and also moved Panther Creek to a 4-0 record before hosting a pair of rematches with Cleveland, Rolesville, and Jordan. Panther Creek already knows how to beat the evidently inferior Cleveland and Rolesville teams. The big test in this three-game home stretch for Panther Creek will be to show some consistency when they attempt to take down Jordan for the second time in seven days. What is clear is that Catamount fans are in for a spectacular sequel to the impressive performance put forth by the Panther Creek football team.

UPDATE: Panther Creek defeated Rolesville and Cleveland in home rematches.