By By BRIAN HAINES, Sports Writer
YEATESVILLE — Pamlico came into the 30th annual Washington Daily News/PotashCorp Aurora Holiday Tournament as the reigning champions and will enter next season’s tourney the same way as the Hurricanes out-scored Mattamuskeet 36-19 in the second half to slip past the Lakers 62-58 in the championship game at Northside High School on Tuesday.
Tournament MVP Shane Whitfield and all-tournament team selection Anthony McCray led the Hurricanes down the stretch as they both made several big plays in the final minutes of the fourth quarter.
Whitfield posted a game-high 27 points, while McCray tallied 17 points and 11 rebounds.
The Lakers, who held a lead for a majority of the game, where led by Saquon Cunningham’s 19 points, and a 16-point effort by Emauri Byrd.
Mattamuskeet (6-4, Tideland Conference) took a 51-44 lead into the fourth quarter, but allowed Pamlico (7-4 Coastal Plains Conference) to tie the game at 56 with 1:55 left in the game. From that point on the Hurricanes out-scored the Lakers 6-2.
Three of those points came on a McCray three-point play which gave Pamlico a 61-58 lead, while the other three points came on Whitfield free throws.
Hurricanes coach Earl Sadler was happy to see his team earn a come-back victory, but was upset that it didn’t come out ready to play in the first half.
“When I went into the locker room before the game they weren’t ready, their shoes were still untied and some of them still had ear rings in,” Sadler said. “We got one defensive rebound in the first half. … We just can’t not rebound and expect to play well.”
The Pamlico skipper said hitting the boards and a little bit of tweaking to the defensive game play put them over the top in the second half.
The Lakers (7-4 Coastal Plains Conference) dominated in the paint for the better part of the first three quarters by running a high offensive attack that created good position for post players Cunningham and all-tournament team selection David Grays, while allowing the guards to back cut.
“We finally in the last two minutes figured it out, literally the last two minutes,” Sadler said. “(Cunningham) just kept scoring until we finally put Anthony on him and Shane on another guy, and just let Shane play behind him so we had people on his front and back.”
Mattamuskeet came out on fire early and seemed to get every rebound and loose ball on the court. The end result of the team’s hustle was a 39-26 halftime lead, which expanded to 49-32 with a little over two minutes left to go in the third quarter. The action stopped briefly when Cunningham suffered a minor injury, and when action resumed the Hurricanes captured momentum and ripped off a 12-2 run to close out the quarter.
Lakers coach Melvin Blount said his team played its best basketball of the season in the first haflf, but committed too many turnovers down the stretch.
“We had a one-point lead with 41 seconds left, but I just don’t think we did a good job of taking care of the basketball,” Blount said. “I think if we had we would have won.”
Pamlico 11 15 18 18 — 62
Mattamuskeet 21 18 12 7 — 58
Hurricanes (62)
Jason Dunn 11, Shane Whitfield 27, King 5, Boone 2, Anthony McCray 17.
Lakers (58)
Saquon Cunningham 19, Devonte Green 13, Emauri Byrd 16, Grays 8, Spencer 2