With snow forcing the cancellation of the remainder of East Central Conference tournament, a tie between the Clinton and East Duplin boys basketball teams was left unresolved. The two teams finished tied at 8-4 in league play while also splitting their head-to-head meetings in the regular season. Needing to figure out who would get the No. 2 and No. 3 seeds from the conference ahead of Sunday night’s NCHSAA Tournament seeding, the two teams met up on Saturday evening at Wallace-Rose Hill for the decisive game. With the gymnasium packed with fans, an energetic unfolded but it was Clinton that stole the show and claimed a 63-44 victory to claim the second spot.
The first quarter was marked as a quarter of runs. Clinton opened the game up on a 6-0 run that was lead by Dieon Venable and Keasean Williams. East Duplin responded with a 9-3 run and the game was tied at 9-9 as the period was closing down. Then, keeping with the trend, the Dark Horses boy a 9-0 spurt in the final 2:21 to lead 18-9 at the end of the first period.
Clinton continued to stay hot in the second quarter and kept the advantage over East Duplin. Leading at 22-14, Venable thunderously put the Dark Horses lead into double digits on a big dunk after driving the lane virtually uncontested. Then, another shot by Shawn Matthews made it 26-14 to prompt a Panthers timeout with 2:36 left in the half. Out of the stoppage, East Duplin made a small run in effort to get back into contention but the Panthers missed an opportunity to cut further into the deficit and Clinton made them pay. The Dark Horses countered with another couple quick baskets of their own and the lead held firm at 10 points. By halftime, that was still the case as Clinton took a 30-20 lead at the break.
The Dark Horses blasted out of the gate in the third quarter as the reeled off seven quick points to make it 37-20. There, though, Clinton’s scoring vaulted and the Panthers begin to chip away. Unfortunately for them, though, they could only manage to erase the deficit accrued throughout the early going of the quarter as Clinton upheld their double digit advantage. Back and forth things went but the Dark Horses again has the upper hand, leading 44-32 headed to the final period.
There, Clinton remained mostly unchallenged as the Dark Horses turned away any attempt at an East Duplin rally. Down the stretch, they hit their stride and steamrolled away to a 63-44 victory.
Leading scorers for the Dark Horses were Venable with 18 points and Matthews with 17. Ja’Melle Williams had 10 points, Keasean Williams had nine, Zyon Simpson had five, and Dylan Mitchell four.
“I’d take this group of kids over anybody,” said Clinton head coach Ron Davis. “Our kids have a ton of heart. You know, today was a tough day. We had to bury one of our students today and I didn’t know how we’d come out. If we’d be flat and they be on our minds but I thought the game in and played with a lot of heart and a lot of purpose.”
“Our defense was good. We knew if we put some pressure on them it’d get them out of their comfort zone and offensively, I thought our dribble-drive was effective. We didn’t shoot a whole bunch of threes instead we made a lot of layups. Kudos to East Duplin, they played well and we didn’t play perfect basketball, but we got the job done,” Davis concluded.
Clinton, now 12-10 overall, will compete in the NCHSAA 2A State Championship. They drew the No. 18 seed and will travel to take on the No. 15 seed Anson tonight at 6 p.m.
