For the second time in three days, South Iredell walked off the court with a win. The No. 6 Vikings held off No. 5 North Iredell in the closing minutes of the consolation game in the R&L/WSIC Holiday Classic for a 36-35 win.
Adrian Whitener put the Vikings ahead by one with a pair of one-and-one free throws with 1 minute, 38 seconds left in the game.
“I had to hit them,” Whitener said. “Good players have to be good in clutch time.”
Trailing by one, North Iredell called timeout with 5 seconds left in the game. Reshad Hunt caught a long inbound pass from the under the Raiders’ basket, tried to drive to the basket, but he was forced into a pull-up jumpshot that bounced off the rim. South Iredell’s Kent Dixon grabbed the rebound to seal the win.
“It’s sad, sad, sad,” North Iredell head coach Tony Davenport said. “They outplayed us, simple as that. They hustled, got after loose balls. They simply outplayed us.”
The No. 6 Vikings (2-9) won two of three games against higher seeds. South Iredell lost Wednesday to No. 2 Lake Norman in the semifinal after it opened the tournament Tuesday with a 48-28 win over No. 3 West Iredell.
“It’s great,” Vikings coach Jim Blackwell said. “We came in here and thought this will be a spring board for the second half of the season.
“We’ve got the part of the schedule where we can go in with some confidence.”
Post players Colby Hall and LaChaston Smith had big games for the Vikings. Both led South Iredell with 11 points. Hunt’s nine points led the Raiders.
The Vikings and Raiders got off to an extremely slow start. The teams combined for nine points in the first quarter while committing 11 total turnovers. Each team finished the game with 22 turnovers apiece.
South Iredell stretched its lead to 20-11 with an 8-0 run in the first three minutes of the third quarter.
The Raiders bounced back and cut their deficit to 32-31 with 5:51 left in the game. North Iredell, however, missed two scoring opportunities around the basket after that.
“We just got to learn to make those shots,” Davenport said. “If you can’t make the easy ones, the hard ones become even harder.”
BOX SCORE
South Iredell 36
North Iredell 35
South Iredell 3 9 16 8 — 36
North Iredell 6 5 12 12 — 35
SOUTH IREDELL (36): LaChaston Smith 11, Colby Hall 11, Whitener 4, King 4, Rutledge 2, Fisher 2, Bowe 2, Dixon, Stockton, J. Hall, Armstrong.
NORTH IREDELL (35): Hunt 9, Laws 7, Ely 6, Nolen 5, A. St. John 4, Colvin 2, Mullins 2, K. St. John, Weibly, Holmes, Brown, Jordan.
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