The Play was Arsenic and Old Lace, a school production that included one of the boys team's starters as a main character. “Play” involved the boys and girls basketball teams in a double-header against Durham's Carolina Friends School.

With the Cary Christian theater adjoining the Knights' gym, the public address system was turned off so the noise wouldn't disturb the theatergoers. But that wasn't all that was turned off Friday evening on campus.

The Carolina Friends girls team (6-1) shut down the offense of Cary Christian (3-2) to defeat the Lady Knights 53-33.

And in the nightcap, the Carolina Friends boys (6-2) turned off the rebounding of Cary Christian (1-4) to beat the Knights 75-48.

In the girls game, Cary Christian coach Shelly Holmes blamed her team's poor offensive performance on a lack of movement.

"We didn't play with fundamentals that we practice,” Holmes said. "We didn't step to the ball and meet passes. We didn't finish layups and we didn't finish free throws. We've got to do that for four quarters – not two and a half.”

Dakota Dukes, a 6-1 senior guard/forward and Davidson recruit, led the Lady Knights with 13 points, but eight of her points came in the fourth quarter. Dukes was the only Cary Christian player in double figures as sophomore Caitlyn Cannon added nine and junior Amy Van Deventer scored seven.

"We didn't step up to our potential," Holmes said. "Defensive-wise we had off-quarters, and you have to play four quarters against a team that wants to play. We did a lot of things to give them extra goals."

Carolina Friends' Zoe Vernon, a Winthrop recruit, scored inside and outside to finish with 22 points.

In the boys game, the Knights were short-handed as senior starter Blake Harwood was playing his role on stage next door in Arsenic and Old Lace and freshman starter Nick Smith was out of town on a family trip.

Cary Christian coach Danny Thomas was forced to use freshmen from the JV roster to fill out the varsity bench. Freshmen Carson Grey and Jason Thompson contributed eight and three points, respectively.

"We brought up some JV players and they did a superb job," Thomas said.

But he wasn't as pleased with the rest of his team, especially on the boards.

"The thing we've talked about the last couple of games is rebounding,” Thomas said. “They were getting too many second, third and fourth shots. That's what we've got to clean up. We were a little better defensively, but we've still got a lot o work to do.”

Christopher Thomas, a 6-5 senior, led the Knights with 23 points. No one else was in double figures as Jordan Dajani matched the 8 points scored by Grey.

"I'm not expecting this team to score a whole more than 50, 60 points a game,” Thomas said. “We don't have those kind of scorers. So we've got keep teams in the 40s and 50s. The only way to do that is to play better defense and keep teams off the boards.”

Asante Monadjemi led Carolina Friends with 28 points, including six points on offensive rebound baskets in the first half.