Terry Tate tip-toed along the West Oktibbeha sideline repeatedly Friday night.
The Timberwolves’ point guard was often flushed to that side by the West Lowndes High School boys basketball team’s 2-2-1 press. The pressure forced the eighth-grader into a string of turnovers in the second half of the Mississippi High School Activities Association Class 1A, Region 5 championship game Friday night at West Lowndes High.
But in overtime, down a point with six seconds remaining, Timberwolves coach Danny Crawford put the ball in Tate’s hands.
Tate drove up the same sideline, straddling the line, and turned sharply toward the basket. With two seconds left, he lofted a shot off the backboard and sealed a 72-71 win to give West Oktibbeha a district title in its last year of existence.
“I was looking at the clock the whole time, had it on my mind the whole time,” Tate said. “All I could think was get to the rim and get it off the backboard. They played tough defense. A lot of times I tried to break it up the sideline, but it wouldn’t work. Every time I’d go up the sideline, I turned the ball over. But I made it work in the end.”
The district title is the first of Crawford’s six-year career at West Oktibbeha. The school, along with East Oktibbeha, will consolidate with the Starkville School District next school year.
“Anything greater than this will be a state championship,” Crawford said. “I’m so proud of these kids.
“(West Lowndes) threw a lot of different looks at us. Terry was poised. He made a lot of mistakes, but he’s an eighth-grade point guard playing varsity ball. I said, ‘Terry, I’m gonna need you to be the best player in the last minutes.’ He’s a young kid, and you have to keep encouraging him. He made a mistake, and he came through. I’m proud of him. He played like a senior tonight.”
The Panthers, who’d taken two out of three from the Timberwolves this season, will rue a critical call that would have given the Panthers a three-point lead prior to the Timberwolves’ final possession. After Lysanius Ford hit a free throw to get West Oktibbeha to within a point, the Timberwolves opted to let more than 15 seconds run off the clock instead of trying to foul and force the Panthers to the line. Suddenly, Panthers’ guard Marcus Farmer received a pass from the perimeter. Without a West Oktibbeha player within five feet of him, Farmer leapt, scored easily at the hoop, and sent the crowd into a frenzy.
But Farmer was called for traveling, negating the three-point lead.
“I was as shocked as everyone in the gym,” said Tyshun Spencer, West Oktibbeha senior forward and the game’s leading scorer with 20 points.
Said West Lowndes coach Roosevelt Bridges, “I saw two points. I saw this game won by West Lowndes.”
West Lowndes will play host to Mount Olive on Tuesday for a chance to advance in the Class 1A State tournament.
The Panthers’ path to overtime was as epic as the series of events that led to their defeat. The Panthers overcame a seven-point deficit with a little more than a minute left, including 3-pointers by Farmer and CJ Smith. The Timberwolves and Panthers each traded three buckets in a 35-second span before Farmer bricked the go-ahead 3-pointer with 15.8 seconds left.
Then, with 3.6 seconds left and a two-point deficit, D’Quaylon Brown hit a wide-open runner in the lane.
“It was definitely a defensive breakdown,” Crawford said. “It was a mixup. They ran a pick and roll and we didn’t switch off of it. The ballhandler had a free path in the lane. Hit a big shot to take the game to OT.
“It’s a rivalry game, district championship. I expected him to make that shot.”
Ford had 15 points for the Timberwolves. Wendell Rieves led the Panthers with 16, while Darius Harkins had 14.
Girls
West Lowndes 49, Nanih Waiya 40
The Lady Panthers overcame a second-quarter rally by the Lady Warriors to clinch the Class 1A, Region 5 title.
LaQuesha Clemons led all scorers with 16 points and helped West Lowndes have a 3-1 advantage in rebounding.
West Lowndes raced out to a 6-0 lead and forced eight turnovers in the first four minutes. Hope Thames then took over with six points to lead Nanih Waiya to an 11-8 lead.
West Lowndes took a three-point lead into halftime after trailing by as much as seven in the second quarter. After a nip-tuck third quarter in which the lead never grew to more than four, the Lady Panthers stretched the lead to double digits for most of the fourth quarter.
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