The third time was the charm for Southside as it advanced to the title game of its own Seahawks Holiday Invitational basketball tournament for the first time in the tourney’s three-year history.
The Seahawks did it in style as they cruised past Trinity Christian 71-48 on Thursday to move on to the championship game where it will face a Pamlico team they have lost twice two already in this young season.
“The players are pretty excited,” Southside coach Sean White said. “We get to play Pamlico again. We’ve already played them twice and had a close game the last time they were here and they’re looking forward to the opportunity to play them again.”
After a competitive first quarter, Southside held an 18-14 lead before it went into halftime up 38-35.
In the third quarter, the Seahawks (5-5) widened the gap to 53-35 thanks to some effective pressure and timely buckets.
“Trinity is a good team and they have some guys that can play,” Southside coach Sean White said. “We stepped up and kept playing defense in the second half and started trapping halfcourt, I think that paid off in the second half. We were leading by 11 at halftime but we stretched it out when we started trapping.”
The Seahawks gave a balanced effort on offense as 10 players registered points. Sophomore Donshae Miller led the attack as he scored a game-high 13 points, while Rokeem Miller and Andrew Jones added 11.
While every team’s goal is to win the tourney, evaluating personnel is also a big part of the two-day hoops event and White got a chance to do that as he emptied his bench during the win.
“We wanted a chance to see some of the bench players and the roles they might fit into and we got to see some of that tonight,” White said. “Aaron Jones was out with a twisted ankle for about three or four games and he played tonight. He was one that I was anxious to take a look at and he played good. Manuel Collins also stepped up; the big man hit a few threes from the outside.”
Trinity was led by Nathan Evans who had 11 points.
Tigers coach Mike Reynolds knew his team was a bit of an underdog coming into the tourney but was proud of the way his team played.
“I was happy to get the invitation from Sean and we knew coming in that we were a small private school and we knew playing public high schools would be tough,” Reynolds said. “But I told the boys we can take what we do right here and use it when we go back to our conference. I told them not to look at the score just play hard and they did. We enjoyed it.”

Pamlico 72, Washington 69
Washington suffered its first ever loss in the Seahawks Holiday Invitational tournament on Thursday as it fell 72-69 in a heartbreaker to Pamlico.
The Pam Pack, which led by as many as 10 points midway through the third quarter, got cold in the fourth as its lead slowly melted away.
Led by Jermicus Brown, who scored 10 of his team-high 15 points in the fourth quarter, the Hurricanes chipped away at Washington’s lead and went ahead for the first time in the second half when Josiah Simmons sank a pair of free throws to make the score 68-67 with 1:14 left on the clock.
It was a lead the Hurricanes would not let blow away as they advanced to the championship game of the tourney where they will face Southside.
Brown was the difference for Pamlico as he drew foul after foul and seemingly converted all of his free throws in the final eight minutes.
“When crunch time comes we want the ball in his hands and he knocked down his free throws tonight,” Pamlico coach Earl Sadler said.
The Pam Pack (4-4)  was led by senior guard D.J. Bell who registered a game-high 18 points, as well Stevie Green and James Austin who scored 17 and 15, respectively.
Washington started the fourth quarter up 56-49, but once it lost its lead with 1:14 to go the two-time tourney champs could not make up the difference.
“We had a couple of opportunities at the free throw line and didn’t make them,” Washington coach Steve Flowers said, “And we just weren’t very smart with the basketball.”
That was the case on the Pam Pack’s final possession of the game. After a Brad Bennett free throw put Pamlico up 71-69 with 4.7 seconds on the clock Washington called timeout before attempting to inbounded the ball underneath the Hurricanes basket. When play resumed, the Pack inbounded the ball to Stevie Green halfway up the left side of the court who looked to pass to the ball to a teammate but was picked off by Pamlico to end the game.