Big second half lifts Cavalier men to win
Dec. 1—Southern Lee participated in a men's basketball game Tuesday night that even head coach Gaston Collins acknowledged was very odd. The good thing for the Cavaliers is that they still came out with the win.
Southern sleepwalked through a first half in which the Cavaliers trailed throughout, by as many as six points, and had a mere dozen points on the scoreboard when the clock hit halftime. But then Southern exploded for 50 second-half points and scored a dominating 62-37 victory, outscoring visiting Western Harnett by 31 points in the second half.
The women's game played out in the opposite fashion, as Southern failed to hold onto a two-point halftime lead after the Lady Eagles began the second half on an 11-4 run. They led the rest of the way, although the Lady Cavaliers kept it close until the final minutes of a 39-33 defeat.
Southern visits Seaforth tonight.
Southern 62, W. Harnett 37
Collins felt his team, which had won its first two games of the 2022-23 season decisively and knew that the Eagles had lost their first two just as badly, came into Tuesday's game overconfident and not mentally ready to play. The Cavaliers scored just two points in the entire first quarter and were behind from that point on.
The second half was a different story, as Southern Lee, which performed miserably on offense in the first half, had a 10-2 run in the first four minutes of the third quarter. Collins put the Cavaliers into a three-quarter court press with a halfcourt trap, and the visitors began to turn the ball over as Southern played with much more energy than it had before. The Cavaliers tied the game at 20 on a fastbreak layup by Isaiah Upchurch, who had been shut out in the first half, and then took the lead for the first time after a steal in the backcourt led to an easy layup for Jaequan Williams.
The Cavaliers eventually won the third quarter 24-5. Tim Carnegie hit two 3-pointers, Upchurch one, and William Emerson had another. The quarter ended on an exclamation point, as Carnegie threw up a halfcourt heave at the buzzer and watched it fall for a 36-23 Southern Lee lead.
They were just getting started. The Cavaliers scored 26 more in the fourth quarter, including two threes by Williams and one by Jaden Best, as they continued to pull away. Two and a half minutes into the quarter, Upchurch had a breakaway dunk, but an even more spectacular play came in garbage time, courtesy of two Southern reserves. Isaac Ramos Zelaya gained control of a ball in the paint, and finding himself cut off, threw a behind-the-back pass in traffic to teammate Jayden Dowdy for a layup and the final two points of the game.
Upchurch and Carnegie each had 12 for the Cavaliers, followed by Williams with 11 and Cooper Harrington with eight. Jackson Lavengood led Western Harnett with 12, followed by Donovan Thomas with eight.
W. Harnett 39,
Southern 33
The women's game was mirror image of what the men did later on, except that the visiting Lady Eagles (2-1) never broke the game open. However, Southern led for most of a methodical first half and was clinging to an 18-16 lead at the start of the third quarter. Then the visitors took command.
Southern Lee began the first half with four ineffective offensive possessions, three of which led to quick baskets at the other end for Western, which took the lead and held it the rest of the way. Southern's Jazlyn Luna kept the Lady Cavaliers in the game with two 3-pointers, one from each corner, but those were the only points Southern scored in the quarter, which ended 29-25 in Western's favor.
Free throws from Brenta Latta and Makayla Hall pulled the Lady Cavaliers within one point with five minutes left in the game, but then Western reeled off six unanswered points to pull ahead by seven, its biggest lead of the game, with 3:30 to play. Southern's Zamaria Melette and Hall scored to make the score 36-32 with 45 seconds remaining, but they had only one free throw after that point.
Hall led Southern with 10 points. Melette added seven and Luna six. Shay McCants led Western Harnett with 16. Sydney Jackson added nine, all in the second half.
