Sumter – Heathwood Hall stuck around, stuck around and stuck around in its SCISA AAAA boys basketball state tournament first-round game against Laurence Manning Academy on Saturday at Sumter Civic Center. In the end it paid off for the Highlanders.
Heathwood rallied from a 9-point deficit in the third quarter, finally grabbed the lead on a 3-point basket by Chip Ravenell with just over two minutes left in the game and held on for a 57-56 victory.
The Highlanders will play lower bracket No. 1 seed Porter-Gaud on Monday at 5 p.m. at Wilson Hall’s Nash Student Center.
“We talked all season to win in the postseason you've got to defend, you've got to rebound you've got to withstand punches from the other team,” said Heathwood head coach Brian Benatur. “We made plays down the stretch,”
The Swampcats, who finished the year with a 16-10 record, led by as many as seven in the second quarter. A late run by Heathwood cut the score to 29-27 at halftime. LMA pushed the lead back out to nine in the third quarter only to have just a 46-42 lead entering the fourth quarter.
A 3 by Ravenell at the 5:49 mark of the final stanza got the scoring started, cutting the lead to 46-45. A steal and layup by Laurence Manning’ senior Josiah Burson pushed the lead back up to three before Ravenell scored again. Eighth-grader Scoop Dennis hit a jumper from the left corner and senior Thomas Sumpter scored on a fast break layup to make it 52-47 with 3:33 to go.
Layups by sophomore Kamari Hunter and junior Nic Nichols set the stage for Ravenell’s trey with 2:06 remaining to make it 54-52.
“He had been shooting the ball well, but he was having a tough game,” Benatur said of Ravenell. “He got his legs under him and hit a big shot.”
Nichols followed up a miss to make it 56-52 with just over a minute left. Dennis hit another jumper to slice the lead to 56-54 with 46 seconds to go. LMA didn’t foul until 18 seconds were left. Sophomore Henry Morris missed both free throws, but the Highlanders grabbed the rebound. Hunter was fouled with 11 seconds remaining and hit one of two to make it 57-54.
The Swampcats had a chance to tie the game when Sumpter was fouled while hitting a layup with 3.8 seconds. However, the free throw didn’t go down and Heathwood grabbed the rebound and ran out the clock.
“We all miss free throws. That free throw didn’t cause us to lose the game,” LMA head coach Will Epps said. “The others we missed before that were just as important.”
Epps, however, said he bore a great responsibility for the loss.
“We had poor game management the entire game on my part,” he said.
Another eighth-grader, Shane Goines, led LMA with 18 points while Dennis had 14. Sumpter finished with 11 and Burson had 10.
Hunter led the Highlanders with 16 points, while Nichols and Ravenell both had 14. Morris finished with eight, and sophomore Deuce Claxton had five.
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