SOUTHERN PINES — A night removed from a convincing win in the Sandhills Athletic Conference girls semifinals to set up a meeting with Pinecrest in the championship, Lumberton coach Sam Davis said his team looked like the complete opposite against the Lady Patriots less than 24 hours prior.
“The difference from tonight and last night was night and day,” Davis said after Pinecrest topped the Lady Pirates 58-34 in the conference tourney title game.
“That wasn’t my team. To me, that looked like a different ball club tonight. … We didn’t shoot the ball well either, we made bad passes across the floor and that’s stuff you can’t do in this kind of game, in that kind of atmosphere. In the conference championship, you’ve got to give your best and we didn’t have our best tonight.”
No. 1 Pinecrest (24-3) snapped No. 2 Lumberton’s (19-6) seven-game win streak, and spoiled the Lady Pirates’ chances at winning a fourth straight conference tournament on Friday.
Davis raved about the effort and balanced play from his team on Thursday in a 56-35 win over Seventy-First, but the loss made him speak differently on the effort, or more on the lack thereof, in a game where Lumberton trailed for all but the first minute of the game.
“If I could give them a grade on this tonight, I’d give them an F on it. Last night, I would’ve probably given them a B or an A,” Davis said. “They had no energy and they were depending on others to make something happen.”
Behind the inside play of Sara McIntosh, and perimeter shooting from a host of guards, Pinecrest ran out to an early lead that was rarely challenged. McIntosh finished with a game-high 16 points.
The Lady Pats took an 18-11 lead after the first quarter, and followed by holding Lumberton to six points and just one made field goal in the second period to take a 31-17 lead at the break.
In last year’s title game, Lumberton rallied from nine points down at the half time pull out a four-point victory. But after a first half of missed shots and turnovers, the Lady Pirates’ body language coming from the halftime locker room did not show signs of challenging the deficit, according to Davis.
“I told them that I don’t care how many points we get beat by, I’m not going to let this team quit. They are going to play to the end, whether we are winning or losing,” he said. “You can’t quit out there. That’s life too. This here is life, when you quit on something out here, you’re going to go through life doing the same thing because you feel like you won’t be able to do it.”
Pinecrest scored the first 13 points of the second half, led by the scoring of McIntosh and Keanya McLaughlin, to take a 27-point lead, which was its largest of the night.
Davis said he didn’t think the games on back-to-back nights were to blame for the lackadaisical showing.
“The way it looked out there tonight, it looked like they were ready for this (the season) to be over,” Davis said.
Madison Canady scored 12 points and pulled down 10 rebounds. The loss on Friday was the first of her career in a conference tournament game after four years of holding down the post for the Lady Pirates. In all six of Lumberton’s losses this season, Canady has failed to score 20 points.
Zye Cade finished with nine points as the only other Lady Pirate to record multiple made field goals. Alexandria Simpson pulled down 11 rebounds for Lumberton.
McLaughlin joined McIntosh as the only other Lady Patriot in double figures with 11 points.
Both teams will wait to see where they are seeded for next week’s state playoffs on Saturday.
“I’ve got to keep letting them know I believe in them,” Davis said. “One game doesn’t dictate how you play the next game. You go into the next game with the mindset that you are ready to play. That’s how I’m going to coach them in practice on Monday.”
