LUMBERTON – Ethel managed to just edge out the Lumberton boys on Tuesday night in a 46-44 loss that eliminated the Panthers from the 1A playoffs.
Lumberton had to overcome several variables, but the biggest it could not get the better of was its lack of roster size as the Panthers had just seven players available for the playoff game.
“It’s been tough,” Lumberton coach Jay Lofton said. “We have been with eight or seven players in the last three weeks. We finished the game with four ninth-graders on the court and one senior. I couldn’t be more proud of the seven guys that we finished the season with. We lost several players throughout the year. This team came together and were still able to accomplish a lot. They were able to go 4-0 and win the district tournament. We just didn’t have enough to get over the hump today.”
The Panthers’ small roster limited Lumberton from playing to its strength of using the fast break and full-court pressing.
“I would say we have more speed as a whole than any 1A team in Mississippi,” Lofton said. “You pressure the ball, you are out full-court pressing, you get into foul trouble, and you are getting fatigued because you can’t sub. It just came down to the numbers.”
Lumberton got off to a slow start and trailed 11-2 by the end of the first quarter.
“(The ball) just wasn’t going in for us,” Lofton said. “We could never get into a rhythm offensively. They really took Tyler Bush, our best player and district MVP, out of the game. He never got his momentum or shots to fall until the end of the game.
“They didn’t do anything we didn’t expect defensively. Our shots just weren’t falling for us. We were starting two ninth-graders, and a sophomore, and they had playoff jitters. I figured that would happen and that we might get down early, but I thought we could weather the storm.”
The Panthers did weather the storm and answered back with a 10-2 run to narrow the Tigers’ lead to 13-12. Ethel stayed ahead and went into the half with a 17-12 lead.
Out of the half, Lumberton again narrowed the lead to one-point with an 8-3 run at 21-20. The Tigers pulled together a run of their own with an 8-2 run and stayed ahead 29-22.
Bush finally found his rhythm and scored 14 of his team-leading 18 points, spearheading the Panthers’ 22-point in the fourth quarter. With less than five minutes left in the game, Lumberton took its only lead of the game at 33-32. Despite the lead change, the limited roster size finally took its toll as two of the Panthers’ starters fouled out, which left the team with five active players.
“We got into foul trouble,” Lofton said. “We were essentially playing with five players. We wanted to save our pressure defense and full-court pressing. I thought that would have given Ethel some trouble.
“We did turn up our pressure in the fourth defensively. If we had a few more numbers, we would have played that style the whole game. You have to give credit to Ethel. I don’t know if they were able to practice any last week due to weather, but they came down here, and they made the plays they had to do to win the game.”
Ethel used the fouls to stay ahead on the foul line as they shot 9 of 14 despite Bush hitting a pair of late 3-pointers in the final seconds, but it was not enough.
For the first year coach, Lofton believes that his team’s 10-3 season and a district championship has built a strong foundation for his younger players.
“I am definitely pleased with how (the season) ended,” Lofton said. “I think there was a foundation laid, especially with my younger guys and my junior high group that can get us to a level so that we can make a run in the future in the 1A basketball playoff tournament.”
