Silver Foxes storm back, Lady Silver Foxes dominate second half

By Drake Horton, Contributing Writer

Lamar – A boys’ comeback and girls’ dominate second half resulted in a clean sweep for the Lamar basketball teams as both were victorious at home against the Timmonsville Whirlwinds this past Tuesday, January 23.

Lamar 45, Timmonsville 42 (Boys)

They say not to judge a book by its cover. The Lamar Silver Foxes say not to judge its basketball team by its cover.

On the cover Timmonsville looked better than Lamar. The Whirlwinds were taller, longer and all around more athletic. Even their record was better than the Silver Foxes.

But on this Tuesday, January 23 it was Lamar that was the better team, winning 45-42 in a game where the Silver Foxes had to use almost every second of every quarter to complete the comeback.

Down 40-34 coming out of a timeout, Timmonsville scored on the following possession to run the lead to eight, but following the basket Lamar went on a 11-0 run to end the game, including a huge three-pointer by Michael Mack with 1:33 left, that gave the Silver Foxes their first lead of the game.

“I like the scrappy play that they had in the fourth quarter,” Lamar boys’ head coach Michael Hamlin said. “If we can get that in all four quarters, I think we can be good.”

Timmonsville had multiple opportunities to take the lead back or tie the game, but a missed layup by the Whirlwinds with 35 seconds to go in the game led to Lamar’s final basket of the game, increasing the Silver Foxes’ lead to three and a game-tying three-pointer at the buzzer was unsuccessful.

As the buzzer sounded there were two extremely different emotions present on the court.

The first was a feeling of jubilation on Lamar’s behalf as the Silver Foxes had just completed an improbable comeback to beat one their bitter rivals. The second was a feeling of disbelief by Timmonsville, who was at a loss on how to explain how it had blown an eight-point with less the four minutes left in the game.

Down for most of the game, Lamar methodically climbed its way back into the game, cutting a 10 point lead to nine by half and turning that nine-point deficit to just one by the time the fourth quarter was ready to begin.

It was the Silver Foxes first region win of the year.

Lamar 48, Timmonsville 28 (Girls)

The start might have been a little sluggish, but the finish is all that matters and the Lamar Lady Silver Foxes put on quite a show in the second half turning a four-point lead into a 20-point win, defeating the Timmonsville Lady Whirlwinds 48-28.

In the first half it was an offensive debacle for both teams, but the way in which each team struggled showed how different the Lady Silver Foxes were from the Lady Whirlwinds.

For the most part of the first half Timmonsville could not do anything right. Whether it was missing shots, taking bad shots, failing to rebound or turning the ball over it was a nightmare for Lady Whirlwinds.

Lamar on the other hand struggled in a different aspect. The Lady Silver Foxes control the glass, whether it was offensive or defensive rebounds and forced multiple turnovers that they were able to turn into transition offense. The problem for Lamar was finding its shot from outside. Lamar took what seemed to be one three-pointer after another, but none of the shots were falling. The Silver Foxes did not hit their first three-pointer until the second quarter when Tatyana Peoples connected from down town with 35 seconds left before the half.

“First quarter, defensively we did what we wanted to do; offensively we just didn’t shoot the ball well,” Lamar girls’ head coach said. “We’ve been getting off to some slow starts.”

To go along with the poor outside shooting, Lamar’s Simone Durant, a preseason top five player for 1A, was held scoreless in the first half.

During halftime Scott must have said all of the right words because Lamar was totally different team. Simone scored, Lamar made shots from the outside and the Lady Silver Foxes’ defense was outstanding.

“At the half I told the girls you have to put the first half behind you because we struggled shooting the ball,” Scott said. “Second half we have to go out there and put together some baskets and that’s what we did.”

For the entire third quarter and all the way to the 3:30 mark in the fourth quarter the only points that Timmonsville scored came from the free throw line.

Meanwhile for Lamar, the Lady Silver Foxes were beginning to find their stroke, turning a four-point lead into 16 after outscoring Timmonsville 17-5 in the third quarter. Lamar took that momentum gained in the third and replicated in the fourth.

“In the second half we just executed a little bit better,” Scott said.

Leading the way for Lamar in scoring was LaQuan Coe with 15 points and Quantavia Coe with 10.The win improves the Lady Silver Foxes to 8-10 overall, but more importantly 4-1 in the region.

Author: Duane Childers

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