Sampson County held their Middle School Basketball Championships at Midway Middle School on Tuesday afternoon. In the girls game, the highly favored Midway Lady Raiders were upended in the championship game by Union Middle, who took home a 44-34 victory in a competitive and hard fought game. In the boys game, Sampson Middle maintained their undefeated streak in claiming the title game, 52-42.
Girls
Midway jumped out to a 13-6 lead in the first quarter; however, they had been up by as much as 12. It seemed like they were headed for victory, but Union began to cut the into the margin. The Lady Spartans drew to within to seven with two minutes left in the first quarter. In the second quarter, Union’s Zadariyah Faison cut the lead to five at 20-15 when she connected on a 3-pointer from the corner and the half ended with Midway up 22-18.
In the second half, Midway came out flat and Union hit the court on fire. Rihanna Murphy got Union’s first lead at 25-24 then Ariyonna Spearman pushed that lead to 28-24 early in the third quarter. Midway came back and tied the game at 30-all but couldn’t hold on. Z. Faison began to get steals and fast breaks to quickly push the score to 35-30, Union. The Lady Spartans continued their scoring drive, going up 37-31 with 1:37 left in the game. Spearman and Faison continued their relentless pressure, getting easy buckets on fast breaks. Union put up a whopping 17 points in the last frame while Midway scrambled to get eight points in reaching the final tally of 44-34.
Faison finished with 22 points and Spearman had 11. R. Murphy finished with seven.
Midway Middle’s scoring was fairly balanced. Morgan Williams led the Raiders with eight points and McKenzie Williams and Skye Parker had seven points each. Bella Lisk had seven.
“That was an exciting finish,” commented Union coach Latoya Snead. “I’m so proud of my girls. We have waited a long time for this. They fought hard and I wouldn’t want to coach anybody else.”
Union’s Spearman commented, “I thought it was over the first half; but we came out strong the second half and came back.”
Midway coach Selena Joseph said, “I thought we came out sort of explosive in the first half. The girls really played well and we did a good job scoring. It seems like we just lost momentum after halftime. I don’t think we scored but four points the whole third quarter. We just went down from there. We just lost our momentum. The first half was awesome; the second half, we just couldn’t get it going in our favor.”
Boys
The Sampson Middle Dark Horses got the boy’s trophy with a 52-42 win over the Hobbton Middle Wildcats. They jumped out to an 11-6 lead in the first quarter and the second quarter was more of the same dominance of the game. The Dark Horses scored 15 points while the Wildcats picked up 10 points to finish the first half with a 10-point lead at 26-16.
Both teams had a big third quarter with Sampson scoring 13 points while the Wildcats scored 18 points, allowing them to cut the Dark Horse lead to five points at 39-34 after three quarters. Two and half minutes into the final frame, the Wildcats had closed the margin to two points with 5:06 left on the clock. Then, with 4:10 left, Reece Bradshaw tied the score at 39-all, seemingly setting up an exciting finish. With 2:30 left in the game, though, Sampson had opened up the score to 42-39 advantage as the Wildcats got a little wild on some of their possessions and gave the ball away. From there, the game finished at 52-42 as the Dark Horses pulled away.
For the Wildcats, Josiah McLaurin led all scorers with 19 points. Bradshaw and Ashawd Wynn had six points each and John Wilkes finished with seven points.
Landon Pearson had 18 points for the Dark Horses, Jamek Sampson had 15 points and B. J. Bennett finished with nine.
“Hobbton gave us their all, they didn’t quit,” commented Dark Horse coach Dwight Horne. “They played really hard. I thought we really missed Walker Spell, our number two guard who has started all season. He suffered a concussion in the Union game Monday night, so he couldn’t play. I thought we really missed him tonight. But, Hobbton gave us all we wanted. I was happy with the win. I thought Jamek Sampson and Landon Pearson did a heck of a job controlling the boards at both ends. I’m just happy with the whole season. I had a great time with these guys. They did everything we asked them to do and to go 12-0 just doesn’t get any better.”
He continued, “This was Sampson’s best game so far. He is going to be a good one. I haven’t had time to analyze the game but I’m sure had had a double-double.”
“I thought Josiah McLaurin had a super game. He is a great player. I think he led all scorers in the game. I just wanted to comment that he is a great player,” he concluded.
“We made a great run at the championship this year,” commented Hobbton coach Jackson Temple. “We have won a lot of close games this year by pure effort and determination. Tonight was much of the same effort that we have brought to the hardwood all season long. We had a great come back to tie the game late in the fourth quarter. Sampson played great defense as well in a physical game on both ends of the floor. Thank you to the parents and teachers that came out tonight to support the team. This Wildcat team is a great example of what it takes to win. We finished runners up during the regular season two years in a row and tournament runners up to the title two years in a row.”
