Lady Lions roar past Antioch in second half

Mintz Christian Academy’s girls’ basketball team played host to their Carolinas Christian Conference foes, the Antioch Christian Gators, on Thursday night. After a halftime deficit, the Lady Lions mounted the second-half comeback to send the Gators home with a 41-34 loss to stay atop the conference.

The two teams started off sluggish, with no points scored for the first minute of action, but the score quickly moved to 2-2 at the seven minute mark. Antioch took the lead on a free throw shortly after, but 14 was fouled on her trip to the hoop to send her to the line for a pair of charity stripe shots herself. She sank one to tie it up.

Victoria Crumpler grabbed a Gator pass to give it back to the hosting Lions, but missed shots and miscommunication offensively netted no points. Ariel King also got a steal of her own, which resulted in another empty possession. Tatum McNair snagged back to back steals for the Lady Lions, but committed a foul on an opposing shot afterwards. The Gators’ shooter sank both to give them the 5-3 lead at the five minute mark.

Mahayla Bell forced Antioch into a bad pass, which Mariana Naylor took and eventually assisted Bell on a layup to tie the game once more. The Gators jumped out to another lead at 7-5, with ball control becoming an issue for both teams.

The score continued spiraling away from the Lions as the visitors took the 9-5 advantage towards the end of the opening quarter, and eventually grew it to 11-5 at the first intermission.

McNair opened the scoring in the second quarter on an early free throw, making it an 11-6 ball game. Bell tightened the game up a minute later on a running floater up the right side, and McNair added two more on a coast-to-coast steal and score, making it just a one point game at 11-10 in favor of the visitors.

Chloe Faircloth would give the Lions the lead just south of four minutes on a put-back of her own shot, to give Mintz the 12-11 advantage. Antioch called a timeout with 3:12 to play in the half to regroup and strategize on how to stop the scoring the Lions had put on.

Faircloth fed Bell after grabbing an offensive rebound in front of the rim, widening the hometown lead to 14-11 with 1:35 remaining in the half. Antioch had a chance to cut the lead to just one, but missed a pair of free throws and the lead remained unaffected. The Gators’ next trip down the court saw them hit one of their shots from the charity stripe, and a steal on Mintz’s next turn with the ball was converted for two, tying the game. A foul was called, and the Gators hit the shot, taking the lead late in the half at 15-14. They would come up with another steal and make it 17-14 on a layup, extending their lead even further with half a minute to play.

The lead grew once again to 18-14, where it would remain as the teams broke for halftime.

Antioch scored first in the second half on a free throw, but Bell answered immediately with a long two, which was nearly a triple. This brought the Lions’ deficit down to just three at 19-16 early in the third.

Neither team could make much of anything happen as scoring continued to be an issue at both ends of the floor, and the Gators held onto their 21-16 lead. Bell collected a rebound from a missed shot by 15 to break the drought, making it a 22-18 game over halfway through the third period. Faircloth picked up a steal and dished it to McNair on the low block, who was fouled on her shot attempt. With both the ensuing foul shot and a later layup, she tied it at 23-all deep in the quarter.

Antioch took the lead back on a free throw to make it 24-23 just north of the one minute mark.

Bell got a shot off right before the buzzer, bouncing it off of each side of the rim in dramatic fashion as the final milliseconds ticked off the clock to make it 25-24 in favor of Mintz going into the final period.

McNair grabbed the first two points of the quarter on a layup, and shortly after grabbed a steal, but the Lions couldn’t capitalize on the turnover. Antioch answered with a midrange two to make it 27-26, still in favor of Mintz.

The Gators momentarily took the lead again on another midrange floater, but McNair was there again to take the 29-28 lead as the teams traded the lead down the stretch. McNair would grab another layup to extend it out to 31-28 before forcing the timeout from Antioch at the 5:17 mark.

Coming out of the timeout, the Gators took it down for a quick score to cut Mintz’s lead to just one at 31-30, as both teams struggled with fouls. Bell grabbed her fifth to foul her out of the game just south of five minutes to play.

Faircloth grabbed two more points when she put a rebound back in to move the lead back to three for the hosting Lions. The lead was extending to the largest it had been all game to five shortly after, and a layup by Naylor deep in the key pushed it even further at 37-30.

The Gators cut the lead to six with a score of 37-31 near the 2:30 mark on a lone foul shot, but inconsistent play offensively by both squads resulted in few points being scored.

Bailey Hargrove made it an eight point game on a layup after a fellow Lion forced a steal, and a rebound by Chloe Faircloth saw her give it to Julianna Faircloth for the layup. This grew the lead to 10 at 41-31 with under two minutes to play.

Antioch took another point on a free throw to make the deficit single digits once more.

Faircloth fouled out of the game with exactly six seconds left, but with little time remaining and a seven point lead, it was inconsequential.

The game went final with a score of 41-34 in favor of Mintz.

“We’re a second half team,” head coach Roscoe McNair said after the game. “The girls knuckled-up on defense and went and brought it home. Usually, in the second half, we put the pressure on. We get a lot of steals and easy layups, and we pretty much depend on that.”