Falcons hold on for a wild ride, Lady Falcons lose steam in the fourth
Renny Johnson (left) was honored during the Hall of Fame ceremony during halftime. Photo by Drake Horton
By Drake Horton, Contributing Writer
Darlington – Rivalry games are what make sports great and this past Friday both the Darlington boys’ and girls’ basketball teams squared off against county and region archrival Hartsville, with the Falcons squeezing out a one point victory while the Lady Falcons dropped its contest by 11.
Darlington 64, Hartsville 63
It was a crazy finish to an even crazier game, but for Darlington the amount of craziness was just right as the Falcons defeated their archrival, the Hartsville Red Foxes, 64-63 in front of a packed house at the Falcons’ Nest this past Friday night.
Up 61-54 and just over a minute left in regulation, the game had all the looks of being over, in the bag for the Falcons, but in basketball a minute can be an eternity and it had to feel that way for Darlington as Hartsville came so close to coming back and shocking the Falcons.
After trading a couple of baskets, including a huge three-point play by Darlington’s Kenynon Scott, Hartsville was quick to score and call time out in the final 21 seconds of the game, scoring the final seven points of the game, including a huge three-pointer with just five second left on the clock that cut the lead to just one after forcing a Falcons’ turnover on the inbounds play.
With no margin of error left for either team following the huge three by the Red Foxes, Darlington was able to successfully inbounds the basketball the second time around and Rodney Goodman was able to dribble the clock out before Hartsville could foul, ending the game.
“We didn’t execute things like we should have down the stretch; it wasn’t a very good job of execution so I will have to eat that,” Darlington boys’ head coach Ken Howle said.
As the fans for Darlington rushed the home court, embracing with the players over the captivating victory it was even more impressive how the Falcons put themselves in position to win the first place.
Missed shots and poor free throw shooting had the Falcons looking at 27-21 deficit going into the half. For all of the cold shooting Darlington did in the first half it made up for it in the second half.
After missing all nine shots from behind the arc in the first half, the Falcons connected on eight of 12 from downtown including back to back three-pointers by Scott, who led the Falcons in scoring with 14, that kick started a 20-1 run to end the third quarter.
“I just can’t say enough about the effort they gave tonight,” Howle said. “They could have folded real easy at halftime and I’m not so sure that stage wasn’t too big for some of them and they settled in at halftime. We challenged them at halftime.”
It was huge change of events as not only had the momentum swung in the direction of Darlington, the Falcons had reversed an eight-point deficit into an 11-point lead all while Hartsville’s head coach Yusuf Kelly never called a time out.
While all of this was happening Hartsville’s best player, Trae Hannibal was sitting on the bench after picking up his fourth foul early in the third.
Foul trouble was not Hannibal’s only problem. The super athletic point guard who can do almost any type of dunk was never able to get into an offensive rhythm, missing on a couple of dunks early in the game to go along with some missed lay ups as well.
With the win Darlington improves to 14-5 overall and 3-0 in the region.
Darlington 47, Hartsville 58
The Darlington Lady Falcons lost to the Hartsville Lady Red Foxes by 11 points at home this past Friday and there was two reasons why: free throws and turnovers.
“First off I want to give hats off to Hartsville, I think they played a really great game and also I am really proud of my girls for how they fought,” Darlington girls’ head coach Brad Knox said. “I think that game tonight was one of the best games that we have played and put together all season long. As previous games, free throws was killing us all season long. We made 100 free throws the other day at practice as a team and we just have to transfer it to the game.”
In the 58-47 contest, the Lady Falcons missed 15 free throws and turned the basketball over 29 times and despite all of that they were still in the game till the very in.
“I think we played pretty good at slowing the game down, getting our post presence (Hope Richardson) involved,” Knox said. “They did everything I asked them to do we just have to get the small things right in order for us to succeed later on in the future.”
A big reason for Darlington being able to keep it close with Hartsville was senior Hope Richardson, who led all scorers with 13 points at the half.
At the half the Lady Falcons were down by only four points and that deficit stayed the same to start the fourth quarter, but in that final period Hartsville was able to use its depth to its advantage and the fatigue in the young Falcons squad began to show.
It even took a toll on Richardson, who scored just four points in the second half.
But despite the loss the Lady Falcons showed grit, not letting being down 21-11 at the end of the first quarter to cause them to throw the towel in. Instead they fought and clawed their way back into the game and kept it interesting all the way till the final minutes of the fourth quarter.
The Lady Falcons are 12-5 on the year and 1-2 in the region.
