SILER CITY — Kenel Barrett’s layup with 15.4 seconds to go in the contest snapped the third and final tie of the evening before his two free throws with 5.1 seconds on the clock sealed the deal as T. Wingate Andrews survived a scare from an underrated Jordan-Matthews team to escape John Phillips Court with a 48-46 PAC 7 2A Conference triumph Friday night.
Completing a sweep of the season series, the winners improved to 5-2 in the league standings and 10-7 for the year, while the Jets tumbled to 2-5 in the conference and 6-12 overall.
Barrett topped three Red Raiders’ players in double figures with 17 points, while T.J. East contributed 13 and Jenoah McKiver chipped in 11. Andrews shot 15-of-36 (42 percent) from the floor and turned the ball over 18 times.
Jayden Davis pumped in 17 points and Lanice Hedgepeth came off the bench to add a dozen for J-M, which connected on 36% (16-of-44) of its field goal attempts and committed 15 turnovers, while both teams collected a total of 21 rebounds.
“This was a hard-fought game in quite an electric atmosphere, and give Jordan-Matthews all the credit in the world,” related Red Raiders’ coach Cory Dumas. “Their record really doesn’t reflect just how good they are. Once they started hitting their shots they made a nice run at us and wouldn’t go away. I was proud how our players kept their poise down the stretch and stayed together, while we had a couple of guys (A.J. Herndon and Khari Walker) step up big for us when some of our starters got in foul trouble.”
Added Dumas, “I thought we attacked the paint well in our half-court set, while our game plan was to contain Hedgepeth, which I felt like we did early before he got loose later in the game.”
Jets’ coach Rodney Wiley said it was one of the better games his team played as a whole all season.
“Andrews jumped on us early when we were turning the ball over before we settled down and allowed our defense to bring us back,” Wiley said. “Our matchup zone in the second quarter was the key to cutting a 12-point deficit to one at the break. Free throw shooting is always a big factor in a tight ball game, and tonight we converted less than 50 percent (13-of-27) of our foul shots, while Andrews sank 15-of-26 (58 percent) of its tries from the line. Although we made a nice rally in the second half to pull even in the closing seconds, we didn’t help ourselves by hitting just one-of-nine attempts from three-point range.”
Behind nine points from McKiver along with treys by East and Barrett, the Red Raiders stormed out to a 21-11 advantage after one period and went up by 12 following Herndon’s fast break layup at the beginning of the second stanza prior to J-M going on a 14-3 quarter-ending run to close the gap to 26-25 at intermission.
After Jordan-Matthews took a 32-31 lead on Hedgepeth’s fast break layup with 4:04 to go in the third frame, Andrews outscored the Jets 8-3 over the remainder of the stanza to fashion a four-point advantage entering the fourth period.
Following Barrett’s layup that increased the Red Raiders’ lead to 43-37 with 5:31 left to play, Davis and Hedgepeth combined for five straight points as J-M trimmed the difference to one with 2:12 remaining.
But after an East free throw was answered by two Chandler Matthews foul shots to tie the count at 44-all with 24.8 seconds to go, Barrett’s layup put Andrews ahead for good prior to his two charity tosses 10 seconds later that provided the winning margin to offset a pair of Jordan-Matthews’ free throws by Seth Moore with 0.5 seconds left that closed out the scoring.