Hawks Come Back and Fall Short
GIBSONVILLE - The great Vince Lombardi once said that his Green Bay Packers never lost a football game, they just ran out of time.
After his team’s game at Eastern Guilford Tuesday night, North Lenoir men’s basketball coach John Eric Waters can relate.
The Hawks, fourth seed from the Eastern Plains 2A Conference, battled back from a 13-point deficit with 3:17 to play, only to come up just short in the waning seconds, falling 85-83 in the opening round of the state playoffs.
The tough loss ended North Lenoir’s season at 12-14. Eastern Guilford (15-11) the top seed from the North State 2A Conference, will host either Bunn or Pittsboro Northwood on Thursday.
“There just weren’t enough ticks left on the clock,” Waters said. “We fought hard but we dug ourselves too deep of a hole to come back from.”
The Hawks actually led 55-50 with 5:11 left in the third quarter before their inexperience took hold.
Eastern Guilford ended the period on a 13-4 run and then started the final frame with a 6-0 spurt. In the span of just six minutes, North Lenoir had gone from a five-point lead to a 10-point deficit.
“We got the lead and we started jacking up bad shots,” Waters said. “We were out of posi-tion defensively and on the boards and we let them regain the lead just as quickly as we took it.”
Defense and rebounding were the primary culprits. The Hawks were sliced and diced by Eastern’s 5-5 senior point guard Tony Rogers, who scored seven points and dished out 11 assists.
The beneficiaries of Rogers’ unimpeded penetration were senior forward Mark Jernigan (20 points) and 6-6 freshman center Quayshad Williams (20 points, 17 rebounds).
“We stood around way too much on defense and couldn’t get a stop when we needed it,” Waters said.
The Wildcats also dominated the boards, holding a 49-29 advantage on the glass, including an incredible 25 offensive rebounds.
“Rebounding has been our Achilles heel all season and tonight was more of the same,” Wa-ters said.
Despite it all, the Hawks stayed close behind a barrage of 3-pointers. North Lenoir buried 12 of 27 attempts from long distance, paced by Chris McPhail’s 6-of-10 effort. McPhail fin-ished with 23 points, 10 of which came in the final period.
His last 3-pointer came with seven seconds left and drew the Hawks to within 85-83. North Lenoir got a bit of a bad break, however, as Eastern Guilford’s Jernigan called time out after being unable to get the ball inbounds.
Two seconds were left when the time out was awarded, a full five seconds after McPhail’s shot swished through the net.
Rogers missed two free throws a second later, but the Hawks were unable to get off a desperation shot before the buzzer sounded.
Juel Bizzell also tallied 23 points for the Hawks and connected on three treys. Tim Roberts also turned in a solid effort with 22 points and seven rebounds.
“Hopefully we learned from this experience,” said Waters, whose team won just four games last season. “One of our goals this season was to triple our win total and make the playoffs. We did that, and now that we’ve gotten a taste of what it’s like, hopefully we can build from there.”
Five seniors played their final game for the Hawks: Roberts, Rashee Hawkins, Laborris Poole, Terrance Harris, and Devonte Bizzell.
