Thurgood Marshall’s Reginald Person III (left) and Shawnee’s Will McBride compete for a loose ball during Coach Q Kewpee Holiday Classic at Lima Senior on Sunday. See more high school basketball photos at LimaScores.com.
Richard Parrish | The Lima News
It took until the final seconds ticked off the clock before Lima Senior could exhale and know it had wrapped up a 73-71 win over Dayton Dunbar in the Coach Q Kewpee Holiday Classic Sunday night at Lima Senior.
The Spartans appeared to be ready to close out the game early in the fourth quarter after Je’Kel Cotton’s 3- pointer gave them a 65-53 lead with 7:15 to play.
But Dunbar battled back to get within one point, at 72-71, with 47 seconds left in the game. A free throw by Brandon Moore gave the Spartans a 73-71 lead with 10 seconds to play.
Dunbar had a final chance to send the game into overtime when Jimmy Moore went to the free throw line for two shots with half a second left on the clock. But he missed the first one, then missed the second intentionally, hoping for a miracle that didn’t arrive.
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Anthony Mosley led Lima Senior (3-1) with 23 points and 10 rebounds. Moore had 15 points, Isaiah Wilson scored 14 and Cotton had 10 points.
“It was a tough one. That’s a good win for our team. Dayton Dunbar is a very good team and they’re well coached.,” Lima Senior coach Quincey Simpson said.
“I thought we played really well in some spurts. I thought we had some mental lapses a couple times throughout the game but we weathered it, made some plays defensively down the stretch, got some key rebounds and were able to come out of here with a win,” he said.
At halftime Lima Senior led 36-33.
There were two times in the first half when it appeared the Spartans were going to put some distance between themselves and Dunbar. But both times the Wolverines were able to stop the Spartans’ runs.
Lima Senior went out to a 16-9 lead to start the game but by the end of the first quarter Dunbar had a 19-17.
A four-point play, where Dunbar hit two technical foul free throws because of an incorrect Lima Senior number in the scorebook and added a bucket kept the game close.
Then in the second quarter Lima Senior ran off 10 unanswered points to go up 27-19. But by halftime Dunbar had the Spartans’ lead down to three points at 36-33.
Shawnee 58,
Thurgood Marshall 45
Shawnee started slowly but finished strongly to get its fifth win in eight games in its win over Dayton City League team Thurgood Marshall in the Coach Q Kewpee Holiday Classic on Sunday.
After missing seven of its first eight shots, including its first five 3-point attempts, it found itself down 12-5 after one quarter.
But by halftime the Indians had cut the lead to one point, 17-16. And they gradually pulled away in the second half when they shot 62 percent (13 of 21).
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Austin Miller scored 19 points and had 7 rebounds to lead Shawnee in both those categories. Will McBride had 11 points and the Indians’ bench outscored the Cougars’ bench 13-2.
“We’ve had a tendency to start slow and I don’t really know what it is,” Shawnee coach Mark Triplett said.
“We just started so flat. We came out and had zero energy. When you do that, especially against a team that wants to get up and down the floor, you’re going to put yourself in a hole and that’s exactly what we did,” he said.
So what were the big factors in Shawnee’s turnaround?
“I thought guys played harder. I thought the defensive rotation got a little better. We took four charges. We got their big guy (6-6 Cedric Dillard) in foul trouble. When he’s not on the floor, they’re a lot smaller,” Triplett said.
Dillard picked up his third foul in the first 30 seconds of the third quarter and got No.4 with 14 seconds left in that quarter.
Reach Jim Naveau at 567-242-0414.
