Sometimes ugly can be beautiful.
That was the take Saturday afternoon at the Roanoke College Bast Center.
Surviving a contest dominated by turnovers and errant shots, North Cross sophomore James Nworah scored the deciding basket on a beauty of a layup with 10 seconds left, as North Cross captured the VIC Division-II title with the 59-57 win over Hargrave.
“It was ugly,” North Cross head coach Ed Green noted as the Raiders celebrated while posing with the championship trophy. “We turned it over on six of our first eight possessions to start the second half. Fortunately, Hargrave wasn’t able to capitalize.”
That may have been the understatement of the afternoon.
Hargrave had numerous opportunities to provide itself separation on the scoreboard in the second half, only to misfire on low percentage shots or turn the ball over.
Things only got worse on the defensive end for Hargrave, as the Tigers took the afternoon off when it came to rebounding. North Cross got numerous second and third chance opportunities while Hargrave seemed content to watch the Raider misses, despite having 7-foot center Ivan Cucak in the paint.
“We just didn’t execute,” Hargrave head coach Thomas Messinger noted of the lack of rebounding. “We didn’t box out at all, and that created second chance shots for North Cross the entire game.”
“It puts a lot of pressure on your offense when there’s a 7-foot guy in there,” Green pointed out. “We played pretty good defense today against a good team. We held them to 57 points, and they’re usually in the 80s. Today, we were good enough to win this tournament. I’m very proud of my guys.”
Hargrave led by as many as five points in the first quarter as North Cross looked for the solution to Cucak’s presence. With little flow to the game, the Raiders came back in the second frame to tie things at 23 heading to the halftime break.
North Cross scored the first four points to open the second half, but the Raiders went cold over the next several minutes, giving Hargrave the chance to make a statement. The Tigers, however, could only muster an 8-2 run during the significant Raider drought. Cucak’s put-back at the buzzer put Hargrave up 42-39 heading to the final 8 minutes.
With the Tigers AWOL on the boards to start the fourth, North Cross went up 48-46, and the game was tied at 51 with 4:01 to play.
Hargrave senior guard Terrence Ward put the Tigers up 55-51 after hitting a pair of free throws with 2:36 to go, but North Cross responded with a 6-0 run ignited by Peyton Bailey’s 3-pointer from the corner, a pair of free throws by senior Jordan Lowery and a Bailey free throw with 36 seconds left.
Hargrave scored to tie the game at 57, but Nworah streaked to the basket with the game-winner, getting past the last Tiger defender.
“I decided not to call a timeout because we had the numbers to score when we got the ball in,” Green said of the winning possession. “I let them go.”
Lowery led the North Cross scoring with 24 points, while Bailey netted 14 and Nworah canned 10.
Ward paced Hargrave with 16 points, with Ty Nady picking up 14 points for the Tigers.
Bill Turner