Tuesday's point guard battle between Seventy-First's Marcus Williams, left, and Lumberton's Montrae Strother went to the Falcons as Williams netted a game-high 22 points. Strother, who scored a team-high 14, said the Pirates' lack of intensity led to his team's 52-point loss. | Brad Crawford, The Robesonian
There wasn’t much head coach Mackie Register could say to his Lumberton boys basketball team following Tuesday’s 98-46 drubbing at Seventy-First.
It’s one game in a long season, but words of encouragement evaporated quickly in a turnover-filled mess that resulted in the Pirates’ fourth consecutive loss.
“I just told the guys the season starts tomorrow and to put this one behind them,” Register said, referring to tonight’s home game against St. Pauls (3-1). “I can go in there and beat a dead horse, but that’s not helping anything. I think this makes us better in the long run picking up things from a senior-led team like Seventy-First.
“We’ve had five weeks of practice. They’ve had four years.”
The Falcons jumped on the Pirates from the opening tip and never trailed. Dominique Page’s breakaway dunk six minutes into the game pushed Seventy-First’s lead to 12 at 23-11. Seventy-First hit 12 of its first 20 shots including a backdoor alley-oop by Page off a well-placed lob from Marcus Williams.
Page had three dunks during a lopsided third quarter and finished with 20 points and 11 rebounds. Williams dropped a game-high 22, handed out six assists and nailed four of his team’s season-high nine 3-pointers.
Seventy-First outscored Lumberton in the second half 45-11 and had 13 players score.
“We didn’t have any intensity at all, but I kind of figured that would happen based on how we’ve looked in practice,” Lumberton senior Montrae Strother said. “We were flat (Monday) and it showed tonight. They were pretty good, but we just played bad.”
Lumberton couldn’t capture the same intensity it showed during last week’s overtime loss to Fairmont and had trouble getting back in transition against the Falcons’ furious pace. Strother called Lumberton’s 32-turnover performance “unacceptable.”
“We need to win this next game against St. Pauls,” Strother said after scoring 14 points. “We need to just play better basketball. We'll have our crowd behind us, so that should help.”
Seventy-First girls move to 5-0
Despite cutting into a 30-point deficit midway through the third quarter, Lumberton's girls basketball team struggled to contain Seventy-First hot-shooting guards during Tuesday's 77-52 loss.
BOYS: 71st 98, Lumberton 46
LHS 15 20 6 5 — 46; SF 28 25 22 23 — 98
Lumberton — Montrae Strother 14, Johnson 9, Brock 5, Sampson 4, Revels 4, Williams 2, Sheridan 2, Suggs 2, Dees 2, Fredrick 2; Seventy-First — Marcus Williams 22, Dominique Page 20, Sidney Knox 13, Swait 8, Harvey 7, Watson 7, Vince 6, McGee 5, Howard 4, Anderson 2, Mackelvene 2, Goshee 2; 3-Point Goals — LHS: Johnson 2. SF: Williams 4, Swait 2, McGee, Knox, Page; Technicals — Seventy-First bench; Records — Seventy-First 5-0, Lumberton 0-4.
GIRLS: 71st 77, Lumberton 52
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