COLLEGE PARK — The first half of the 3A boys basketball state semifinal saw the No. 7 C.Milton Wright Mustangs and the No. 12 Huntingtown Hurricanes exchange the lead nine different times with no team taking a bigger lead than five points.
So, when halftime rolled around Mustangs head coach John Stefanides implored his team to hold onto the five point halftime lead that the Mustangs were clinging to.
“When we first got in we talked about three. The game was pretty much three points one way or the other throughout the first half. We talked about three, we’re up five, it’s a two possession game,” Stefanides said, whose Mustangs advanced to the first boys basketball state final in school history. “Let’s not giveaway (those) two possessions early.”
The Mustangs would do that and more as they would take down the Hurricanes, 61-52 behind the strength of a big fourth quarter and 25 points from senior guard Corey Bays.
During the first half, both teams traded blows back-and-forth with both teams making shots and both teams putting together strong defensive possessions with the Mustangs going on a 6-0 run over the final 2:44 of the second quarter to give them a 28-23 lead at the end of the half.
When both teams came out of the locker room to start the second half as both teams continued to trade buckets back-and-forth with neither team seeming to be able to go up and grab the momentum. The Hurricanes were able to cut the Mustangs lead down to two with a lay-up by Daquon Watts. It seemed as if the Hurricanes were back in the game.
In the end, that was as close as the Hurricanes would get. The Mustangs would run away as Bays would rack up 14 points between that bucket and the end of the game to help the Mustangs stride to the win.
Bays was the main player for the Mustangs as he would take control of the game in the final minutes getting easy lay-ups to help extend the lead.
“My teammates were able to help get me the ball in a scoring position, so I gotta give all the credit to them,” said Bays who ended up 2 rebound shy of a double-double. “At this stage of the game all the teams are good so you have to do all of the little things well.”
The Mustangs were able to do get those little things just right in the second half, especially when it came to their play on the boards and second chance efforts. Neither team had much success shooting the ball from outside with both teams finishing under 31% but the Mustangs had tons of success on the board as they out-rebounded the Hurricanes by eight.
There was also the fact that whenever Huntingtown seemed to jump up and take ahold of the momentum, C. Milton Wright came right back and forced the Hurricanes to play chase with them again.
“We were definitely chasing them but we had momentum,” said Hurricanes senior guard Brandon Easton who scored 12 points for the Hurricanes, pairing nicely with his twin brother Bryan’s 15 points. “We had to run our sets, get to the basket, and make plays, to reduce the lead and try to chip away at it.”
And, while the Hurricanes were able to do that to a degree, in the end the Mustangs were just too strong. After starting the fourth quarter with a three point lead, C. Milton Wright was able to extend the lead to seven with a vicious slam from Dante Brown, his first in three tries, giving the Mustangs the seven point lead and knocking Huntingtown and the crowd that supported them out of the game.
“The whole entire game I was just trying to go up strong, trying to be physical, trying to create contact,” said Brown. “The whole time I was just saying ‘Go up, be physical, play strong and they’ll begin to fall.’”
In the end, it was C. Milton Wright who would make the necessary half-time adjustments in order to seize the swinging momentum of the game and book a spot into the state final, with a shot at history staring them down. And, even though winning a back-and-forth battle is usually a cause for celebration, Stefanides and his troops weren’t ready to celebrate just yet.
“When we were going into it we talked about not celebrating,” said Stefanides. “Today is not a celebration. We celebrate championships. We got to celebrate the Outback Championship, we got to celebrate the sectional championship, we got to celebrate the regional. Today is just a game. Saturday is the championship.”
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