Friday, February 26, 2010

Wildcats squeak by Lions to win MACJC state title
River’s 61-58 victory over host East Miss marks fifth state championship in 19 years under Mathis

    SCOOBA — Pearl River’s Wildcats squeaked past East Mississippi’s Lions 61-58 for the 2010 MACJC men’s state championship here Thursday, marking head coach Richard Mathis’ fifth such title since taking over the program 19 years ago.
    The Wildcats, now 24-4 overall, rallied back from a three-point deficit at the intermission to outscore the Lions 34-28 in the second half to take their 17th-straight victory.
    “It was a closely contested game between two good basketball teams and we’re just lucky we pulled out the win,” Mathis said. “But we played particularly well on the defensive side. That was the difference.”
    The scoreboard saw a total of 12 lead exchanges (three in first half, nine in second), while things were deadlocked eight times (five in first half, three in second) during the contest.
    Mathis, an EMCC alumnus who played hoops for the Lions, lauded his team.
    “Everybody on this team made solid contributions to this championship,” he said. “All our starters and out bench people did their jobs.”
    In the first half, East Miss led for nearly the first 10 minutes but Josh Moore out of Forest Hill High in Jackson hit his sole basket of the night at the 10:45 mark to give Pearl River its first lead of the game at 14-13.
    The Wildcats maintained their lead for the next eight minutes until Donovan Walker sank a foul shot to tie it at 24-24, then Deonte Alexander hit the front end of a one-on-one to give the Lions a one-point edge. PRCC immediately retied it off a free throw by LaKendrick Maye of Prentiss High before Rod Little of Moss Point High hit a bucket put the ‘Cats up 27-25 with 1:30 left.
    EMCC answered with a 5-0 run in the final minute to grab a 30-27 lead at the break.
    “We were just glad to get to halftime down by only three,” Mathis said. “We’d played pretty well for the first 20 minutes and still had 20 to go.”
    In the second half, the score was tied three times and the lead exchanged hands nine times before a Zach Vickers of Laurel Hill, Fla., hit two of his four points on the night to make it 54-53 with 4:28 left and put The River up for good. Kenderek Washington of Hinds AHS followed with a basket and a pair of free throws to pump the Wildcats lead to four before Alexander answered with a trey to cut PRCC’s lead to one — 57-56 — with 2:10 remaining.
    Crawford followed with a bucket, then Walker zilched two foul shots before Kegan Houston of Quitman High added two at the free throw line with 15 seconds left.. Walker redeemed himself with a pair of free throws at the nine-second mark to end the scoring.
    “I think they (East Miss) kind of got panicky there at the end with their three-point shots,” Mathis added. “We played a lot more zone that we’d anticipated, but it was working. We knew who their shooters were, knew where they were, and guarded well.”
    Mathis guided his previous 18 Wildcat squads to four titles — 1994-95, 1997-98, 2002-2003, and 2003-2004 — as well as another men’s title at Northeast Mississippi and a women’s championship at East Mississippi.
    CoCo Ware paced the Lions with 17 points (nine rebounds), while Richard Dixon added 13 (seven rebounds), Walker 12, Alexander 11, John Harris three (six rebounds), and Jonathan King two (nine rebounds).
    Washington led PRCC with a game-high 19 points (seven rebounds), while Crawford added 13 (eight rebounds, three blocked shots), Jones five (game-high 10 rebounds), Denzel McDaniel out of LeFlore High in Mobile four (four assists), Houston, Little, and Vickers, four a piece; Moore two, and Mychael Keeler of Oak Grove High and Maye, one each.
    Pearl River was 21 of 58 (36.2 percent) from the field to East Mississippi’s 19-of-65 (29.2 percent) effort, while the Wildcats were one of 12 (8.3 percent) from three-point range to the Lions four-of-23 (17.4 percent) showing. At the foul line, PRCC was 18 of 31 (58.1 percent), while EMCC was 16 of 28 (57.1 percent).
    In the women’s championship game, previously undefeated and third-ranked Copiah-Lincoln (South No. 1) saw its 25-game winning streak end with a 72-62 loss to defending MACJC champ Jones County (South No. 2).
    The Wildcats return to action Tuesday against Southern-Shreveport (La.) in the Region 23 Tournament set for Mississippi College in Clinton (game time to be announced).