Bearden pulls away late from Devils
MAGNET COVE — Bouncing back from a winless campaign with two postseason victories, Mountain Pine’s Cinderella basketball season struck midnight here Wednesday.
Battling with top-seeded Bearden for three and a half quarters, a technical foul by Mountain Pine’s Tae Gibson led to four straight points and a 63-52 lead for the Bears with four minutes to play. The Red Devils never recovered, losing 80-69 in the first round of the 2A-South regional tournament.
“It was very deflating; I felt that if we stayed close enough, we would be able to pull it out in the end,” first-year Mountain Pine coach LaMont Page said. “I’ve
been with these guys all year and taught them how to build off losses, but that’s something that we’ll have to address. We can’t get technical fouls, especially when the game is on the line. That’s not part of basketball and that’s not how I want my teams to be known.”
Neither team gained more than a five-point advantage in the first quarter and the score was 17-all after six lead changes, Lashawn Reed leading Mountain Pine with six points.
The Red Devils opened the second period with an 8-0 run but Bearden stormed back to tie the game at 27 midway through the quarter. After two straight free throws by Devarious Hughes, the Bears led 31-29 at the break.
“We played Mountain Pine basketball tonight; we attacked the basket and we played good defense,” said Page. “They knew this was a one-and-done situation, and they came out and played hard. They laid it all on the line tonight.”
Both teams went nearly shot for shot in the third quarter as the lead changed hands nine teams and was never more than three points. Reed had seven points for the Red Devils, but Bearden led 48-46 starting the fourth.
Five straight points by Sontania Lawson made it 53-46 before Gibson took over for Mountain Pine. The sophomore scored 14 points in the fourth quarter and the Red Devils pulled within 68-63 after an and-one by Reed with just over a minute to play.
Missed free throws by Bearden gave Mountain Pine a glimmer of hope, but turnovers on two straight possessions allowed the Bears to stretch their lead to 73-65.
“What’s been hurting us all year came back to bite us again, and that’s turnovers,” Page said. “That’s been our Achilles heel all season. Right here at the end when we were down, we turned the ball over twice. We could have come down and scored, got a couple stops and been right back in the game, but we gave it right back.”
Matt Snow cut the deficit to 77-69 with a layup before Tyler Berry put the exclamation point on Bearden’s victory with a slam dunk in the final seconds. Led by Berry with a game-high 24 points, the Bears had four scorers in double figures while Gibson paced the Red Devils with 22 points off the bench.
“He’s always been our spark plug; unfortunately tonight he was a little bit too much of a spark plug,” said Page. “That’s what you deal with when you have a player that has that much fire in him. It’s up to me to try to corral him and he played great for us offensively tonight. If he stays mentally focused, moving forward he can be a very good player for us.”
Tyler Zander added 17 points for Mountain Pine and Reed finished with 16. Despite coming up one game short of a berth in the Class 2A tournament, Page was proud of his team’s effort and spoke highly of the future after a 17-10 record.
“I think I’ve laid the foundation; I haven’t done everything I want to do, but I’ve done step one of what I wanted to do,” he said. “I wanted to show these guys that they can win. They’ve never been a part of a winning program before. We’ve still got some things to work on, but we’re definitely going to be back here in the fight next year.”