Fredrick Rice Jr. was tired of missing free throws.
Frustrated with his “on and off” shooting at the foul line, the West Lowndes High School junior walked into the gym at noon Tuesday with a singular purpose entrenched in his mind: getting it right.
In a critical moment Thursday, Rice showed that the work he had put in had already paid off. He buried all four of his free throws — breaking a career high of three — in the final minute of the Panthers’ home game against Caledonia to lift West Lowndes (4-4) to a 75-72 win over the Cavaliers (4-8).
“It made me feel good, personally,” Rice said of his role in the victory. “But it made me feel the best knowing that I’m helping the team out.”
Rice put the Panthers ahead by a point with his first pair at the line with 46 seconds to go and made a second set when he was fouled intentionally with just 16.7 remaining. Caledonia missed a 3-pointer on its final possession as it sought to tie the game at 75-all.
It was West Lowndes’ second straight win after a hard-fought 66-57 win Tuesday at McAdams — a “homecoming” for Panthers coach Michael Huffman at a school where he previously coached girls basketball.
“We got in a war there,” Huffman said. “Tonight, I knew, was going to be a war with Caledonia. I knew they were going to come out hard. They have a great ballclub.”
The Panthers had emerged the victors in a back-and-forth game that saw the Cavaliers pull ahead early, a big second-quarter run by West Lowndes and a furious fourth-quarter Caledonia comeback.
West Lowndes led by eight points after a Taddarious Washington putback with four minutes left only to watch Caledonia pull ahead with two straight fast-break baskets off turnovers.
“It’s exciting when they turn it over; when we do it, it hurts,” Rice said of a back-and-forth stretch in which neither team could seem to keep a solid handle on the ball.
Huffman pointed to the inexperience of players like stellar sophomore Darrell Brooks (who led West Lowndes with 28 points) as a reason for West Lowndes’ giveaway issues Thursday.
“I’ve got young guards, and they’re going to have growing pains,” Huffman said. “Unfortunately, they may have growing pains when you don’t want them to have growing pains. But that’s the only way they’re going to get better.”
But Caledonia’s ball-handling problems proved more important Thursday at the worst of times for the Cavaliers. Caledonia’s Tre Bohannon turned the ball over with 35.6 seconds to go, and when the Cavs got the ball back on a travel, senior Jarvis Leigh couldn’t secure a high inbounds pass, and Washington took possession. He found Rice under the basket, and the senior put the Panthers up three.
With about six seconds to go, Ja’von Hopkins missed a straightaway 3-pointer with a chance to tie the game, and West Lowndes dribbled out the clock.
“It got rough, but it made me feel proud that all of us kept our head up, kept playing,” Rice said.
The Panthers were helped Thursday by an 11-0 run to kick off the second quarter after trailing 20-17 to start the period. After Caledonia fought back a bit, a 9-0 stretch to close the first half got West Lowndes’ lead back up to 40-30.
But Hopkins made a jumper to give the Cavs the lead back with 1:40 left in the third quarter, and the two teams traded scores for several minutes. Leigh, who led Caledonia with 33 points, banked a 3 in from the left corner while falling down, then stole the ball and sank a layup to put Caledonia on top.
West Lowndes scored the next nine points and soon led 66-59 with 3:24 to go, but the Cavaliers got within a point at 69-68 and took the lead on a Jeremy Emerson layup. Decamby Willis and Bohannon traded buckets as Caledonia clung to a one-point lead.
Then Rice was fouled with 45.9 seconds remaining. As he walked to the free-throw line, he looked calm.
A couple minutes later, the Panthers’ bench and the home bleachers could exhale, too. West Lowndes had finished an important win.
“It shows that we’re getting better,” Huffman said. “We’re growing.”
West Lowndes girls 58, Caledonia 46
Averi Sanders leapt in the air to snag the basketball and took off down the court.
The West Lowndes senior has always thrived on making big plays on defense for the Panthers, and Thursday’s game against Caledonia was no exception.
Sanders’ steal with a few seconds to go in the first quarter Thursday led to an easy layup that stretched the Panthers’ early lead from one point to three, and West Lowndes (4-4) got things rolling from there to beat Caledonia (3-10) by a score of 58-46.
“She’s our defensive general,” Panthers coach Takeea Bozeman said of Sanders. “Any time she has a good night on defense, it’s a good night all around.”
Nenah Young led West Lowndes with 19 points, but Sanders was right behind with 14 as the Panthers grabbed an important win ahead of Friday’s game at Nanih Waiya in Louisville.
The diminutive but active Sanders was a critical part as she repeated her first-quarter play early in the second period for another steal and layup to cap a scoring streak that put West Lowndes up 18-10.
“I can get stops, they won’t score, and we score and go ahead on the scoreboard and just try to win games,” Sanders said.
By the half, the Panthers’ lead had risen to 12 at 31-19, and West Lowndes wasn’t done adding to it. An and-one basket by Young put the Panthers up 46-26.
Then Caledonia suddenly came roaring back. The Cavaliers scored 13 straight points to cut into the West Lowndes lead significantly, getting as close as seven points at 46-39.
“I feel like my kids, they just continued to fight and scrap,” Caledonia coach Ame Walker said. “I was proud of their effort after halftime. They stuck to the game plan.”
But Bozeman switched her defense from man-to-man to a zone, and senior Tydajasha Hood and Sanders each buried layups to give the Panthers some necessary breathing room. A few minutes later, West Lowndes finished off its 12-point win.
“We played well,” Sanders said. “I felt like we could have played better. We could have played more defense.”
Walker said Thursday’s loss was far from crushing for a struggling Cavaliers team against a Panthers squad that played in the MHSAA Class 1A semifinals last season. Caledonia, she said, showed encouraging signs.
“Sometimes it’s a win even when it’s not a win,” Walker said.
Other scores
Prep Girls Basketball
Leake Academy 66, Heritage Academy 36
The Heritage Academy girls basketball team suffered a 66-36 loss to powerhouse Leake Academy on Thursday in Columbus.
Lucy Sharp led the Patriots (5-8) with 21 points.
Heritage Academy is right back at it tonight against Lamar School in Columbus.
Prep Boys Basketball
Heritage Academy 77, Leake Academy 48
The Heritage Academy boys beat Leake Academy 77-48 in Thursday’s home game.
Whit Altmyer had 28 points for the Patriots.
Theo DeRosa reports on Mississippi State sports for The Dispatch. Follow him on Twitter at @Theo_DeRosa.
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