PITTSBORO — Deuce Powell wasn’t about to let Northwood’s dream season end in a nightmare Thursday evening in Lewis Norwood Gymnasium.
The senior forward buried a three-pointer from the right corner as time expired to lift the Chargers to a thrilling 56-54 come-from-behind victory over a stunned Terry Sanford team in a second-round NCHSAA 2020 Men’s 3A East basketball state playoff contest.
Stretching its winning streak to eight games, No. 3 Northwood raised its overall record to 25-2 and will now entertain 11th-seed Cape Fear (19-5) Saturday night in a third-round matchup, while the 19th-seed Bulldogs ended their season at 18-7.
The Chargers led for 31-plus minutes before Quay McMillan’s conventional three-point play with 44.7 seconds remaining gave Terry Sanford its first advantage of the night at 52-51.
Following Jalen McAfee-Marion’s jumper off the right baseline seven seconds later that reclaimed the lead for Northwood, the Bulldogs answered with Davis Molnar’s layup off the right baseline to regain the advantage at 54-53 with 12.7 seconds to go.
The Chargers’ Jack Thompson then missed a layup in the closing moments, and in a scrap for the rebound the ball was swatted into the backcourt, where Northwood’s Alex Snively chased it down as time appeared to have run out, setting off a wild celebration by Terry Sanford.
However, the officials ruled Chargers’ coach Matt Brown had called a time-out with 1.2 seconds left and requested that amount of time be put back on the clock.
When play resumed with Northwood looking to inbound the ball at midcourt, McAfee-Marion heaved a long pass to deep in the right corner, where Powell made the catch and launched his game-winning shot as the Chargers’ bench erupted in jubilation while the Bulldogs looked on in disbelief.
“I’ll count this win as a blessing,” Brown said. “I thought we played hard and defended well for the first 28 minutes before we almost let the game slip away. Both teams shot well down the stretch, but they went to man coverage in the fourth quarter, something we hadn’t seen in awhile and it threw us off. We gave up too many offensive rebounds which led to a lot of their second-chance points, and that’s one area we need to clean up.”
Powell finished with 17 points and McAfee-Marion totaled 12 for the victors, while Snively and Thompson contributed 10 apiece.
Molnar led Terry Sanford with 13 points, while Kyron Kelly and McMillan chipped in a dozen each.
Although Terry Sanford shot 44 percent (20-of-45) from the field compared to Northwood’s 37 percent (17-of-46), the Chargers won the battle of the boards by a 27-18 margin and went 18-of-24 from the charity stripe, while the Bulldogs made five-of-10 attempts from the line. Northwood committed 17 turnovers, whereas Terry Sanford turned the ball over 20 times.
Bulldogs’ coach Karl Molnar said that while Powell ended up hitting the deciding bucket, he felt Northwood really won the game in the first half.
“Obviously I’m proud of our guys making a comeback after battling uphill all night,” said Molnar. “I thought both teams started out slow, but Northwood got hot in the second quarter to open up a 13-point lead at intermission. Their defense kept us back on our heels most of the night, never letting us get into any kind of offensive rhythm until six three-pointers in the fourth quarter finally got us going. We gave ourselves a chance to pull it out at the end, but we don’t spend much time in practice on how to defend shots with 1.2 seconds on the clock.”
Despite only connecting on three-of-15 field goal attempts in the initial stanza, the Chargers built a 9-6 advantage behind treys from Snively and Powell before Thompson and Powell combined for 10 second-quarter points as Northwood surged to a 27-14 lead at the break.
Following back-to-back lay-ups by Yates Johnson and Cooper Barco to begin the third period that drew Terry Sanford within nine, the Chargers closed out the frame with a 9-4 run to take a 12-point advantage into the final eight minutes.
But the Bulldogs then managed to unleash a furious offensive assault over the course of the fourth quarter, fueled by two three-pointers apiece from Kaylon Keys and McMillan coupled with single treys by Molnar and Johnson, to catch up with and eventually surpass Northwood, setting the stage for Powell’s dramatic game-clinching hoop.