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East Davidson had nothing to lose in its 2-A state playoff opener against CCC rival Central Davidson, and for nearly three quarters had the game under control. Ahead by 14 with 3:55 left, the Golden Eagles had the sweet music of an upset ringing in their heads, but the Spartans suddenly snapped out of their funk to reel off a 35-10 run the rest of the way to advance, 59-48.
Blowing a lead like that in the regular season would have been disappointing to head coach Matt Jacobs, but given the circumstances, he couldn’t have been prouder.
“It is a tribute to my guys, that we were blown away by 45 points last Tuesday, told that we were not in the playoffs, played baseball and tennis for four days, had one practice and came out and performed the way they did,” he said. It was a heck of a run. Those seniors went from a 3-21 doormat, to that close to the second round. That is a tribute to their effort. I’m not upset at them a bit.”
East looked anything but an underdog Tuesday evening, and proved that they did belong in the playoffs.
The Golden Eagles settled into a nice offensive flow, depending on its outside shooting for a majority of its points. Bryson Faulkner opened the scoring for East with a 3-ball, and by the time Kyle Workman canned a 3 from the top of the key, East was looking at a 28-21 halftime lead.
Sensing the Spartans were starting to crumble and fade away, East mounted another charge and was poised to blow the game wide open.
Workman scored on deep jumper and Kevin Michael attacked the glass for a layup to push the lead to 12. Moments later Kyle Branson scored his only two points of the evening in the post and Anthony Callicutt tossed in a free throw, making it 38-24 with 3:55 to go.
Then everything abruptly stopped for East.
Central went to a full-court press and it worked to precision. The next 14 points went to the Spartans to knot it up at 38-all, and suddenly the student section across the way had life.
“We panicked just for a couple of minutes,” said Jacobs.
Central coach Brian Hege was just relieved to see something finally work.
“We felt like we had to go small and create an uptempo type game,” he said. “We got in the passing lanes, had good traps, and got key steals that led to immediate baskets. That is our style of basketball, run and gun.”
With the pressure working well, Hege stuck with it and the Spartans continued to produce points using it. Complete momentum swung to CDHS with Shawn Davis’ 3-point play the hard way, as the Eagles found themselves down 48-44 with 3:25 left.
Having the crowd on its side and visions of a second round game at home on Thursday, the Spartans closed the deal and ended East’s season for good this time.
“They [East] wanted it just as bad as Central did,” Jacobs said. “Central just got back to playing Central Davidson basketball and took the game over. That’s a credit to their guys and coach Hege for getting them refocused.
Free throws doomed East in the second half with only five of their 15 attempts going down.
Central was led by Nick Parsons’ 21 points, and will host 16-10 North Surry tonight at 7.
East ended the season at 7-18, and was led by Workman’s 12 points.