By Brandon Speck
Special to The Dispatch
TUPELO – Starkville had Tupelo’s number for the last two years. Friday, Tupelo got revenge at a bad time for the Yellow Jackets.
The Golden Wave beat Starkville 38-33 in a defense-first Class 6A playoff game to advance to the state quarterfinals and end Starkville’s season.
“It’s over with too quick. It goes by real fast,” Starkville senior power forward Jesse Little said.
Starkville had beaten Tupelo four straight times, twice in this regular season, by a point here on Dec. 17 and by nine nine days later at Mississippi State’s Humphrey Coliseum. It had also beaten the Golden Wave in last season’s 6A semifinals.
The game had runs on both sides but a lot of the result can be traced back to the final five seconds of the first half. Tupelo led by five with 10 seconds to go, then by seven after Tahj Crump banked in a seven-point lead.
Crump then tipped away the inbounds pass and chased it down to find Kylan Hamilton for a 3-pointer and 25-15 lead at the horn.
“We gave up five points in the last five seconds,” Starkville coach Greg Carter said. “That was huge. It was a big momentum builder for them going into the second half.”
Starkville has just trimmed a seven-point lead to 20-15 on a basket from Darrious Agnew.
“That was kind of the momentum right there,” Little said. “They were able to jump out to that 10-point lead and we could never get back into it.”
Hamilton had a team-high 11 points for Tupelo. Senior point guard Tyjil Hereford had 10, including four clutch free throws in the final 30 seconds. Starkville got a game-high 15 points from Agnew and 10 from Blake Rogers. Donte Powers scored six.
“You don’t know how huge those points are until it ends up like that,” Tupelo coach Jeff Norwood said. “To do what (Crump) did gave us a chance to go to Jackson.”
Tupelo (26-4) forced Starkville (26-4) into several miscues to fight off an early deficit. Starkville had four turnovers in the first 2 minutes, 30 seconds of the fourth quarter.
Starkville outscored Tupelo 10-4 in the third quarter.
“I thought we played pretty well in the third quarter,” Carter said. “We defended really well but we fought so hard to come back to cut it to three that it hurt us in the fourth quarter. We couldn’t sustain it.”
Starkville scored seven straight to get within three in the third quarter, a pair of Agnew free throws, a two from Powers and a 3-pointer from Rogers. But after a pair of turnovers, Tupelo went back ahead by five.
“They’re a great team. They played more physical than we did,” Little said. “There’s no excuse for turning the ball over like that. They play great defense, but that was us at the end of it.”
Starkville trailed 30-25 with 5 minutes, 30 seconds to play and didn’t score until Agnew’s make three minutes later to pull within 30-27.
With 1:22 to play, Powers sank a pair of free throws to keep the Jackets’ margin at three but Hamilton snuck into the lane for a layup and a five-point Tupelo lead with 49 seconds to play. But Powers again hit two big points, a jumper to cut Tupelo’s lead to 34-31 with 30 seconds left.
Points came at a premium in the first quarter. After Tupelo scored first, it took nearly three minutes for Starkville to tie it on Agnew’s bucket. The Jackets scored seven straight to take a 7-2 lead and led 9-7 after a quarter thanks to a pair of free throws from Agnew.
It took nearly 10 minutes of game time before either team had double figures. Starkville took an 11-8 lead on Rogers’ make. After Hereford scored off a steal to put Tupelo ahead 12-11, Starkville turned the ball over on two straight possessions. Between the two, Tupelo’s got a 3-pointer from Tate Clayton for a 15-11 lead.
The Dispatch Editorial Board is made up of publisher Peter Imes, columnist Slim Smith, managing editor Zack Plair and senior newsroom staff.
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