Democracy Prep defeats Del Sol Dragons 75-45 in basketball

Del Sol's LaVerk Hodges, right, drives against Democracy Prep's Najeeb Muhammad on Tuesday.

Democracy Prep's Najeeb Muhammad, left, defends Del Sol's LaVerk Hodges on Tuesday night. Muhammad had 20 points, eight rebounds, 10 assists and four steals in a 75-45 win. (Damon Seiters/Las Vegas Review-Journal)

Democracy Prep's Najeeb Muhammad, left, drives to the basket against Del Sol on Tuesday night. Muhammad had 20 points, eight rebounds, 10 assists and four steals in a 75-45 win. (Damon Seiters/Las Vegas Review-Journal)

Democracy Prep’s defense staked the Blue Knights to an early lead on Tuesday night.

The team’s outside shooting made sure Del Sol wouldn’t be able to come back.

Democracy Prep forced nine first-quarter turnovers, then hit six 3-pointers in the second quarter to pull away en route to a 75-45 boys basketball victory over the visiting Dragons.

“I tell the kids all the time to make the (other) kids uncomfortable,” Democracy Prep coach Trevor Diggs said of his team’s first-quarter defense. “Play as hard as you can. Give all the defensive effort you can and it works out sometimes.”

It certainly did on Tuesday, as the Blue Knights parlayed those nine turnovers into a 21-6 lead after the first quarter.

They then went 6-for-10 on 3-pointers in the second quarter, and led 45-18 at the half. Democracy Prep (15-5) hit 13 3-pointers for the game, led by sophomore Chancellor Johnson, who made seven.

“Chancellor Johnson is one of the best sophomores in the state, in my opinion,” Diggs said. “He can shoot the ball. We’ve got a lot of good perimeter shooters. We don’t have any bigs. We’re not tall, so we scrap and we try to shoot lights out every game.”

Johnson finished with a game-high 27 points. He added five rebounds and four blocked shots. Senior point guard Najeeb Muhammad added 20 points, eight rebounds, 10 assists and four steals for Democracy Prep. Justous Harvey scoreed 11 for the Blue Knights, who improved to 5-0 in the Sunset League at the midway point of the league season.

“We’ve got to keep fighting,” Diggs said. “We’ve got to play as hard as we can and keep playing defense.”

Nati Asfaw led Del Sol (11-9, 3-2) with 16 points and 14 rebounds.

Contact prep sports editor Damon Seiters at dseiters@reviewjournal.com or 702-380-4597. Follow @DamonSeiters on Twitter.