NEW HOPE — This is how the New Hope High School boys basketball team performs when not at its best.
The Trojans put three players in double figures, paced by LJ Hackman’s 23 points, and built double-digit leads in each quarter before finally pulling away for good. During a stretch in which they missed a dunk and failed to convert a layup on an alley-oop pass, they still went on an 11-2 run.
So on a night coach Drew McBrayer and the night’s top scorers agreed did not show the Trojans at their best, they still went out and recorded a 78-54 win over Noxubee County on Tuesday night.
“It got really sloppy tonight, really chippy,” McBrayer said. “I thought there were a lot of fouls that dictated the flow of the game and honestly got us out of the rhythm of our game. We normally play a lot smoother than that.”
It was a 9-point game early in the fourth quarter when the Trojans began to take command. A technical foul after a personal foul on the Tigers got the home crowd riled up, and it only got louder after Hackman made 3 of 4 free throws to push the lead to 60-46. A 14-1 run followed, fueled first by two nice moves along the baseline for baskets by junior guard Matthew Stennis and second by the sequence that finally blew the roof off of the Trojans’ gym: a blocked shot by Issace Grady on one end that led to a smooth layup from Caleb Parr on the other to give New Hope a 70-49 lead with 2:20 left to go.
Seven players scored during the fourth quarter for the Trojans, a fact that did not go unnoticed by Parr.
“Everybody had their moments to step up,” said the senior guard, who finished with 18 points, including 10 during the third quarter. “I stepped up, my teammates stepped up, the crowd got into it. It wasn’t one particular point, it was overall.”
The game’s lack of flow, during the first half especially, was a product of the whistle, McBrayer said, noting that things changed after intermission.
“All the fouls in the first half took the rhythm out, and I think they kind of figured the game was taking too long and quit blowing the whistle in the second half, and it got really chippy,” he said. “We do like to play fast and get up and down the floor, but I thought we got a little sloppy tonight.”
McBrayer was also disappointed in the defense at times, especially during the second quarter when, paced by 10 points from senior forward Davontaye Boone, the Tigers outscored the Trojans 21-17 to go into halftime trailing 35-28.
“We struggled a little bit on the defensive end in the first half,” McBrayer said. “We did a better job in the second half, but we gave them way too many easy baskets. We’re normally a lot better defensively than that.”
For the first three quarters, the Tigers wouldn’t let the Trojans take command. Each time it appeared New Hope (6-2) would pull away, Noxubee County buckled down and didn’t let it happen.
The Tigers fell behind by 11 after one quarter, and 2 minutes into the second they were down 19-15. The lead was back up to 12 when Parr scored with an assist from Jackman pushing the ball up the floor with 1:21 to go in the first half, but the Tigers scored 7 of the second quarter’s last 9 points to keep it close.
A 13-point lead midway through the third quarter was down to 50-43 thanks in large part to Rapheal Harris and Boone, who finished with 17 points despite playing most of the game with four fouls while Harris led the Tigers with 20.
“Normally we get up the floor and play fast and push tempo and blow teams out that really aren’t on our level,” Parr said, acknowledging that games against Noxubee County are always physical.
That finally happened during the fourth quarter, as the Trojans got the running game going. All 23 New Hope points during the fourth quarter came either from free throws or layups.
“Normally we make a run and we put it away, and normally that run is in the second or third quarter, not so late in the fourth quarter,” McBrayer said. “We’re very explosive at times when we can get into a rhythm, and we didn’t get into a rhythm until late tonight.”
“It was one of those things,” Parr said. “We played sloppy, but we were still in control.”
Matthew Stennis finished with 11 points for New Hope, while Grady and TJ Warren each totaled 9.
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