JACKSON — Eric Green spun toward the center of the key.
Late in the third quarter of Wednesday night’s MHSAA Class 6A semifinal against Oak Grove at the Mississippi Coliseum, the Starkville High School senior looked ready to attack the basket with vigor once again.
Then Green swung the basketball to the right wing, finding teammate Keyvon Pearson with several feet of space. Pearson paused for a second to set up a 3-pointer, knocking down the shot with ease to put Starkville ahead 35-29 with one minute, 11 seconds remaining in the quarter.
The possession was a perfect example of what the Yellow Jackets needed — and what they hadn’t done in an uncharacteristically slow first half — as they used a big third quarter to beat the Warriors (18-4) by a score of 64-51 to advance to the Class 6A championship game.
“We started driving; we started kicking out and making shots,” Green said.
Starkville (21-2) will face Clinton at 7 p.m. Saturday with a chance to win its third straight state title.
“I’m just happy to be where we are,” Jackets coach Greg Carter said. “Three years in a row in the championship game with basically three different teams. I’m just happy for those guys.”
That was really all it took for Starkville after scoring just 18 points in the first two quarters and going into halftime down by one. Carter directed his team to go to the basket more and noted that the game would open up from there.
Right away, the strategy worked as Jarmarvious Phillips gave Starkville a quick lead and the Jackets extended it from there. With Green directing traffic at point guard, Coltie Young hit a big 3 before Pearson connected from deep twice with all three shots coming in the final two minutes of the quarter.
Carter praised his trio of seniors for giving Starkville a 38-31 lead headed into the fourth.
“Eric took over the first part of the third quarter; Keyvon followed it up with the second part of the third quarter, and Colt was good the whole third quarter,” the coach said. “Those three guys pretty much carried us offensively, and when they can get going like that, they can be hard to stop.”
A veteran of critical postseason contests, Carter said he’s been around long enough to see crazy things happen at the end of close games. Consequently, he urged his team to keep the pressure on rather than let the Warriors back into the contest.
The Jackets listened. Threes by Pearson and Young capped an 11-0 run to push Starkville’s lead to 19 points with 3:54 to play. Oak Grove redoubled its offensive efforts after that but never got close enough to seriously threaten Starkville, which closed out a 13-point win.
For the Jackets, it was a whole different story from the first half, in which Starkville was rusty in all facets of the game: misfiring on open 3s, missing shots around the basket, giving up offensive rebounds and allowing transition scores.
“We just had to relax a little bit,” Carter said. “I thought we were a little bit uptight early.”
But that disappeared as Starkville punched its ticket to its third straight championship game. Carter noted that the Jackets — winners of the past two — have gotten as far as they have despite wildly different rosters year to year as each season’s seniors move on. Often, that leads to low expectations that Starkville has continued to surpass.
“It’s really good for the program because folks didn’t think we were going to make it this far,” Green said.
He’ll lead Starkville into Saturday’s game against the Arrows, who beat the Jackets in a 68-60 game Jan. 18 at the MLK Rumble in the South tournament in Jackson. With two days of practice remaining, Carter said he hopes his team will be able to put four quarters together in the title contest against a solid, established Clinton team.
“We have to be able to get some stops, we have to be able to score it, and we’ve got to be able to keep up with them because they’re going to put points on the board,” Carter said.
Theo DeRosa reports on Mississippi State sports for The Dispatch. Follow him on Twitter at @Theo_DeRosa.
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