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North Lenoir falls to Farmville Central 81-73
LA GRANGE - For a loss, this one was about as good as it gets.
Seemingly left for dead after an atrocious first half, the North Lenoir Hawks battled back to give conference favorite Farmville Central a few anxious moments before running out of gas and falling 81-73 Tuesday at Wooten Gymnasium.
The visiting Jaguars also took the girls contest, shutting down the cold-shooting Lady Hawks 47-39.
The boys game looked like a rout in the making, especially when the quick and talented Jaguars (10-3, 3-0 Eastern Plains 2A), reeled off 14 consecutive points to open the second quarter. That made the score 34-14, an advantage that would eventually swell to as many as 23.
Trailing 38-20 at the break, and resembling a deer in an 18-wheeler’s headlights, it would have been easy for North Lenoir to simply mail in their second half performance.
A remarkable thing occurred, however. The Hawks (9-8, 1-2) came out of the locker room like a team possessed, gnawing away at the deficit with each passing moment.
“I assured the guys at halftime that we could play with them,” North Lenoir coach Jon Eric Waters said. “Farmville’s a great team, big, strong, and fast, but I sincerely believed that all we needed to do was match their intensity level.”
Which the Hawks did, and then some. Led by Juel Bizzell and Chris McPhail, who com-bined for 30 second-half points (or 10 more than the entire Hawks squad managed in the first half), North Lenoir chipped away methodically at the lead.
A 12-2 spurt early in the fourth quarter, culminated by McPhail’s long trey, closed the gap to 65-58 with 4:40 remaining.
Unfortunately the Hawks could get no closer as the long comeback and relentless pace began to take its toll. They trailed 78-71 after a McPhail lay up with 29.7 seconds on the clock before the Jaguars connected on three of four free throws to end the game.
“We dug ourselves too big a hole, but we did a lot of good things in the second half,” Wa-ters said. “This was definitely a second half we can build on.”
Bizzell finished with a game-high 25 points, 18 after break, while McPhail added 14. Marquez Powell fought his way inside for 12 points and eight rebounds against a much big-ger Farmville front line.
Farmville’s girls shot just 32 percent and committed 34 turnovers, but that performance ran circles around the Lady Hawks.
North Lenoir (9-8, 1-2) hit just 12 of 73 field goal attempts (16 percent) and 14 of 30 free throws, yet were amazingly still in the hunt at the end.
Farmville (3-8, 1-2) jumped to a 12-0 lead and never trailed, although the Hawks did come within three on several occasions.
Helena Davis and Kristen Davenport scored eight points each for North Lenoir, which opened the game by missing its first 15 shots from the floor.
The best game of the night was the junior varsity. Paced by the dual threat of Rasheed Outlaw (33 points) and Tray Harris (29 points), the JV Hawks outgunned Farmville 101-97 in overtime. Harris tallied eight of his markers in the extra session.
The Hawks host Goldsboro in another important conference clash Friday.
