Two Points That Didn't Count

The top seeds for the second night in a row won in the quarterfinals of the Big East basketball tournament. Tonight it was ladies night and the three and four seeds won but four had all they wanted from #5.

Southern Nash fought off slow start trailing 4-0 after three minutes of play but for the next 16 minutes they were clearly the best team on the court and shot out to a 33-15 lead over Hunt with two minutes gone in the third quarter.

Hunt started driving to the basket and slowly cut the lead to 35-29 at the end of the third quarter. Hunt took the lead and with less than three minutes to play held a 42-40 while the Lady Firebirds attacked their basket. Wayne Bryant called time out just as one of his players streaked to the basket for a lay up to tie the game only to be waved off by the officials and a time out granted. As the clock ticked down the last minute and a half Hunt held for the last shot but nothing found the bottom of the net and the four and five seed played an extra four minutes of basketball. Those two points for the Firebirds would have looked nice on the score board but it read 48-48.

The final four minutes Hunt was able to out score Southern Nash 9-5 and secured their spot in the semi finals against Rocky Mount with a 57-53 over time victory over Southern Nash.

Hunt had four players with double figures as Danesha White carried the biggest load with 17. She was followed by Quenesha Brown with 13, Amber Parrish score 11 all which came from the foul line and Lizzy Madden hit double digits with ten.

Southern Nash was lead by Khadijah Manning with 18 points and ten rebounds. Southern turned the ball over 26 times to only 13 for Hunt. The rebounds were dead even at 27 each. Neither team can thank their free throw shooting for winning the game as Hunt was 15-31 and the Lady Firebirds a poor 6-17,

The opening game of the night Fike the #3 seed jumped on Nash Central 8-0 and never let up in the first quarter sprinting out to a 27-7 first quarter lead. The Lady Bulldogs trimmed on the lead and had set themselves up by cutting the lead to 38-26 just before the half but Tameka Ruffin tossed in a three point mid court shot at the buzzer to give Fike a 15 point half time lead which was about as close as Nash Central could get.

Fike outscored Central in both the third and fourth quarters to run away with a 75-48 victory over Nash Central. Fike dominate the boards winning that 46-28. If Nash Central thought Fike might miss a few free throws that didn't happen as The Golden Demons were 11-12.

EJ Proctor and Alicia Baines lead the way for Fike with 17 each. Niya Stiles gave it all her little body could give for Nash Central scoring 20. Jasmine Williams added 15.

Fike will now play Northern Nash in the second game Thursday night while Rocky Mount will play Hunt.

Wednesday night the semi finals for the boy takes place as #1 Hunt will play Northern Nash in the opener at 6pm while Rocky Mount and Nash Central tussle at 7.30.

I suspect a few folks will be in the house compare to the few hundred tonight.