Graham leads South Lenoir boys to second round

ST. PAULS - Just when it seemed South Lenoir’s season was coming to a close, Alex Gra-ham and the Blue Devils decided they wanted to play another game.

The senior guard scored 10 of his game-high 18 points in the final 2 minutes of his team’s first-round NCHSAA 2A playoff contest at St. Pauls to help turn a 40-35 deficit into a 49-42 victory.

“I think we realized the urgency tonight,” SL coach Jimmy Smith said. “Our effort was just great tonight. I’m proud of our group because we hadn’t dug that deep all year.

“I wanted one more game and I think they did, too.”

The Blue Devils (14-12) will travel to Kitty Hawk in Thursday’s second-round game to face First Flight (16-10). The Nighthawks downed Richlands, 67-59, on Tuesday.

St. Pauls’ Aaron Bethea hit a short basket from the lane to give the Bulldogs (11-12) a 40-35 lead with 3:03 left in regulation. After SL’s Quan Outlaw laid in a bucket 13 seconds later, Blue Devils coach Jimmy Smith called a timeout in which he exhorted his troops to not give up.

And they didn’t. Including Outlaw’s basket, the Blue Devils converted on their final seven possessions of the game. South Lenoir, which missed nine of its 12 free throws before the final 2 minutes, hit all eight it attempted in the last 1:55.

“In that timeout, Coach challenged us to come out and show some heart,” Outlaw said. “The seniors didn’t want our season to end, so we stepped it up.”

No Blue Devil played a bigger role than Graham, who missed his first four free throws of the game. He hit all six free throws he tried in the last 2 minutes and also hit two lay-ups during South Lenoir’s rally.

“(Smith) told me to play hard and my teammates told me to take over, so I did,” Graham said.

Smith said he was proud of the effort given by his lanky senior.

“I’ve challenged him all year and sometimes I’ve thought his confidence has wavered,” Smith said of Graham. “He really stepped up tonight and did a heck of a job, but the whole team did, too.”

South Lenoir led the entire first half, taking a 22-16 lead at halftime. St. Pauls rallied, though, and took a 27-25 lead on a 3-pointer by D’Marco Shaw with 5:10 left in the third quar-ter.

The Bulldogs didn’t trail again and led by as many as seven points in the fourth quarter until a Graham lay-up with 1:41 left gave South Lenoir a 43-42 lead.

The Blue Devils lost to St. Pauls in Deep Run last year in a sectional final that denied South Lenoir its first-ever 2A Eastern Regional appearance. That loss was in the back of the Blue Devils’ minds.

“When we first found out we were playing these guys, we said that we owe them some-thing,” Outlaw said. “They kept us from going to Greenville last year, so we wanted to do it to them in their house.”

Graham’s 18 points led the Blue Devils, while Outlaw had 13 points and seven rebounds. McRae led St. Pauls with 16 points, 11 rebounds and three blocked shots, while Bethea added 11 points for the Bulldogs.