ST. PAULS — Pacing back and forth along the St. Pauls bench, head coach Travis Lemanski peered at the scoreboard with 5:08 remaining Thursday night in the first round of the Robeson County Shootout and took a seat by the water cooler.
In the same position three times previously this season, his Bulldogs had come up empty.
This time was different.
“I called timeout up by 10 and told the guys to relax,” Lemanski said. “I told them I would stop screaming and relax too if they did.”
After letting a pair of double-digit leads slip away in the fourth quarter to Lumberton recently, St. Pauls maintained its composure against Purnell Swett and held on to beat the Rams, 59-50, to snap a two-game losing streak to its cross-town rival.
More importantly, the win puts the Bulldogs in tonight’s semifinals against Flora Macdonald in Pembroke.
“Yesterday I didn’t even break out the balls for practice, I just sat the players down in my room and told them we need to finish games,” Lemanski said. “We had to be mentally tough and make sure we didn’t tank up. When things go bad and you drop your head and pout, that’s called tanking up. I’m proud of the guys for not tanking up tonight.”
St. Pauls (2-7) enjoyed some breathing room most of the second half thanks to Antonio Henderson’s continued resurgence on offense and a pair of clutch drives from Deion Gilchrist. Henderson lit up Lumberton for 18 points in an overtime loss Tuesday and poured in a team-high 19 against the Rams.
He also added six assists.
“Coach has been telling me it’s time to produce and I’m doing my best with that,” Henderson said.”We hear that Flora Macdonald is pretty good. We’re just going to have to box out, hit free throws and play like we did tonight.”
The Bulldogs began the second half on a 13-4 run, highlighted by a coast-to-coast layup from Henderson. The senior captain broke down a defender at midcourt and swooped through the lane for two points with his right hand to put St. Pauls ahead, 37-26.
Rebounding and turnovers crippled the Rams, who lost for just the second time in eight games. Swett will play Red Springs tonight with the winner advancing to Saturday’s fifth-place game at UNCP.
“I really just thought we got out-played and out-coached,” Swett coach Jeremy Sampson said. “I told our guys that St. Pauls took Lumberton to the wire in overtime twice, so we can’t take them lightly. They are better than 1-7. They’re really athletic.”
Juwan Jones paced Swett with 20 points and six steals. Jones is the area’s leading scorer at just under 19 points per game and along with forward James Chavis, was Lemanski’s main focus defensively.
“If Swett was going to beat us this time, we weren’t going to let those two guys get off,” he said. “They had a little trouble against our zone late in the second game so we tried it again tonight. It seemed to work pretty well.”
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