JACKSON — Keith Harris’ shot hung on the rim for what seemed like longer than a few seconds.
When your team has turned the ball over on four of its last five possessions, waiting that long can be agonizing.
When that happens to your team and you’re suddenly clinging to a four-point lead in the final two minutes, you’ll try anything, even twisting your body to affect the ball, to get something to go your way.
Thankfully, Harris turned his body language the right way as he watched the ball — and the Starkville High School boys basketball team’s season — hang in the balance.
“I was just thinking we had to make a play,” Harris said, “so I took a shot and it went in. I saw it hanging there. I was like, ‘Please, please go in.’ ”
Harris followed his layup with a steal near midcourt and another layup with 12.8 seconds remaining Thursday night that helped Starkville beat Meridian 53-47 in the semifinals of the Mississippi High School Activities Association Class 6A State tournament at Mississippi Coliseum.
Starkville (25-5) will play Madison Central, which defeated Provine 45-37, at 8 p.m. Saturday for the Class 6A title.
Starkville, which beat Meridian 57-51 in 2010 to win the Class 6A state title for its last state championship in boys basketball, has beaten Madison Central twice in three meetings this season. The Jaguars won the first game 59-52 on Jan. 23, but the Yellow Jackets won 71-58 on Feb. 6 and 78-53 on Feb. 20. The second win came in the title game of the Region 3 tournament in Starkville.
On Thursday, Starkville delivered another memorable performance.
“They made plays,” Starkville coach Greg Carter said. “The way Meridian plays, you’re not going to get a basket off something you drew up. You’re not going to come off screens and make shots. It ain’t going to be pretty. You just have to be able to go out there and make plays. We made enough plays to pull it out.
“We struggled at times with the trapping, but, for the most part, we handled it,” Carter said. “We panicked a little bit at the end. The last two or three minutes wasn’t like we normally are. We panicked a little bit. I think we will be fine.”
Starkville equaled its biggest lead, 47-33, on an offensive rebound putback and free throw by Raphael Leonard (12 points, team-high nine rebounds) with 3 minutes, 44 seconds to play. But Meridian (27-7) turned up the intensity and forced four turnovers in the next 2:29 to get back into the game. A 3-pointer by Kenderrick Pringle (nine points) sliced Starkville’s lead to 47-43 with 1:32 remaining.
That basket set the stage for Harris’ first basket. After Starkville survived the heart-stopping moment with the basketball hanging on the rim, Harris did himself one better with another game-winning play. This time, he threw himself into the fray with two Meridian players and went high to tip a 50-50 ball.
“When I tipped the ball I just knew I had it,” said Harris, who joined guard Tyson Carter with eight points. “All I had to do was make the layup, and I did.”
Harris said he tipped the ball over one of the players who were near midcourt. His layup gave Starkville a 51-45 lead with 12.8 seconds to play and came after a turnover and two misses that could have helped the Yellow Jackets put the game away.
Meridian’s Brandon Miller (team-high 16 points) answered with two free throws with 4.5 seconds to go, but Josh Skinner (team-high 14 points) sealed the deal with two free throws with 2.2 seconds left.
“We played hard,” Harris said. “Coach (Carter) always tells us to defend and rebound, and we did it. We played hard today. It means a lot to play for a state title. I just can’t wait to play.”
Starkville beat Meridian 63-57 on Nov. 15, 1014. The rematch appeared to be in the Yellow Jackets’ control for much of the evening. Skinner (5 of 9 from the field, including 2 of 3 from 3-point range) led a balanced scoring effort that also saw center Jesse Little (11 points, eight rebounds) reach double figures.
Carter, who played all 32 minutes, had a team-high five assists to lead six players who had an assist. That teamwork helped Starkville finish with more assists (14) than turnovers (13).
“We executed real well,” coach Carter said. “I thought we hurt their man so he had to go to something else. I didn’t think he would stay 2-3 zone, so I figured it would be trapping the rest of the way. In the second half, he may have played one possession of straight man. The rest of it was trapping defenses.”
Carter said a key was having Leonard in the middle of the press-breaker. Once the Yellow Jackets worked through the initial wave and found Leonard, the 6-foot-3 senior forward used his strength and leaping ability to explode to the rim.
“We played against that type of defense most every game all year,” Leonard said. “They tell me when I catch the ball to face up and attack the goal.”
In the third quarter, Starkville extended its lead to 38-27 on an offensive rebound follow by Leonard with 2:02 to go. That eight-minute stretch featured Starkville’s third charge taken, solid half-court defense in which the Yellow Jackets moved their feet and switched assignments, and patience on offense to take the best shot available, not the first shot given to them.
Starkville twice led by eight points once in the first quarter and twice by eight in the second quarter. The Yellow Jackets spread the floor and were content to pass the ball back and forth as the Wildcats sat back and tried to trap when the ball went to the wings. But Starkville was too quick and the defense was too passive, which allowed it to find openings in the center and attack the rim.
But Meridian picked up the pace in the second quarter. The Wildcats moved their front three players on defense up just inside of halfcourt to meet the Yellow Jackets as they advanced the basketball. The move energized Meridian and helped it force three turnovers in the final four minutes. The last two — a traveling call as a result of the trap and a 10-second call in which the Yellow Jackets were too slow getting it into the frontcourt — were unforced and enabled the Wildcats to trim the lead to 22-21 at halftime on a jump shot by Pringle.
Like coach Carter said, though, Starkville had players in the right positions and enough of those players made things happen to overcome the turnovers down the stretch. The final stat sheet reflected the number of players who contributed to a 44.7-percent shooting effort from the field and a 36-25 rebounding edge Meridian also was 2 of 18 from 3-point range.
Those numbers didn’t reflect Starkville’s ability to deliver a big play whenever it needed one. In the fourth quarter, Skinner had one such play when he didn’t hang his head after a turnover at midcourt. Meridian couldn’t convert the layup at the other end and ultimately paid the price as Skinner drained a 3-pointer from the left wing to give Starkville its first 14-point lead (43-29) of the quarter.
“I just wanted to step up and make shots and be a leader for the team,” Skinner said. “I was just thinking, ‘Let it go,’ and hopefully it would go in.’ ”
Skinner’s play was just one example of the teamwork and balance Leonard said have been keys for the Yellow Jackets all season, so he wasn’t surprised to see them be key ingredients one more time.
“That is what makes us a whole team,” Leonard said. “We don’t really rely on one person to win us the game. We believe anybody on the court can make a basket or a defensive stop, so we rely on everybody to help the team out and win.”
On this night, a little body language didn’t hurt, either.
Follow Dispatch sports editor Adam Minichino on Twitter @ctsportseditor
Adam Minichino is the former Sports Editor for The Commercial Dispatch.
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