LUMBERTON — The sights and sounds of the Robeson County Shootout loss were fresh on the minds of the Lumberton boys basketball team as it entered the rematch with cross-county rival Purnell Swett on Friday.
No one was out looking to prove more in the first Sandhills Athletic Conference matchup between the two than Lumberton’s Jordan McNeill. The junior guard heard and remembered the “overrated” chants every time he had the ball in his hands in the Shootout title game before Christmas, and coming off a season-low showing against Scotland, McNeill sent his message out with his play.
“I told my coach before the game I got that feeling. I’ve been vibing all day, exiting everybody out of my head and I kept going and turned it over into the game,” McNeill said after the Pirates’ convincing 85-62 win over the Rams at home.
“All that overrated mess. Man, it just felt great.”
He stuffed the stat sheet with a game-best 26 points on top of 10 rebounds, six assists and five steals to silence those that mocked his play in the Shootout.
“He showed determination,” Lumberton coach Matt Hill said.
Not only was revenge, bragging rights and a victory earned for Lumberton (12-5, 4-3 SAC), but also a return back to normalcy for a team that had dropped two straight conference games to teams in the bottom of the league standings.
“We really needed that to get back on the horse,” Hill said. “We’ve got to keep going one game at a time. We can’t expect other teams to lose to get us there. We have to handle business.
Purnell Swett (8-6, 1-5 SAC) has lost all three conference games since winning the county’s holiday tournament. While losses to Seventy-First and Pinecrest narrowly slipped away from the Rams, Friday’s loss was the first loss of the season coach Jeremy Sampson said got out of hand.
“I told the guys to wipe this away and prepare for the three games we got next week. I told the guys that Lumberton isn’t 24 points better than us.” Sampson said. “We just didn’t play well and made some bonehead decisions I thought at times.”
The contest stayed within a 10-point Lumberton lead for much of the first half as the Rams, playing without Shootout MVP Xavier Jones serving a suspension, struggled to hold up in the paint with the Pirates.
Along with the ferocious drives from McNeill to the trip, the powerful attacks of the rim in the post from Grice were hard for Purnell Swett to contain.
“(McNeill) and Braylan both a couple times went in there missed and went to the other side of the goal to fight for it again,” Hill said. “That’s the kind of night it was. We didn’t shoot the lights out, but we fought for it.”
Grice added 22 points and 12 rebounds for the Pirates.
Taking a 14-point halftime lead, Lumberton applied full-court pressure that proved to be the breaking point for the Rams. The pressure, with the aggressive play of McNeill at the front end, forced turnovers in bulk as the lead quickly grew to over 20 points. Lumberton scored 28 points in the third quarter and took a 70-46 lead into the fourth quarter, giving the highly-anticipated rematch a different form from the first meeting.
“We really pressured them and they turned the ball over and we capitalized on that,” McNeill said. “My defense turns over to offense and offense is just an easy score for me.”
Rufus Harris scored a team-high 18 points, while Zack Carter added 15 points. Jadarion Chatman was the third Pirate in double figures with 13 points.
Lumberton hosts Hoke Friday to start the second go-round of conference play, while Purnell Swett bounces out of conference play against South Brunswick at the Flight 22 MLK Jam at Heide Trask High School on Monday.
Lady Pirates shake sluggish start for win
With starting guard Zye Cade sitting on the bench for the first quarter, Lumberton girls basketball coach Sam Davis wasn’t pleased with the flow of his offense. It wasn’t until Cade made her return, the Lady Pirates were able to create separation against Purnell Swett for a 59-30 win.
“We struggled out in the first quarter because her as the point guard wasn’t out there,” Davis said. “I told her we need to get better.”
Cade sat out the first quarter due to discipline issues and made her impact felt in second quarter with four points. Her 3-pointer with five minutes until halftime gave Lumberton (12-4, 5-2 SAC) an 18-8 lead over Purnell Swett (4-10, 0-6 SAC).
While it was the presence of Cade that helped the flow of the game, senior Madison Canady took over offensively in the second half with 20 of her game-high 29 coming after the break.
“I changed the offense to go out there with three bigs and put her out front,” Davis said. “We started getting in the flow and everyone started hustling and we were stopping easy shots.”
Alexandria Simpson added 10 points in the post for the Lady Pirates.
Purnell Swett’s Jada Coward had 12 points to lead her team in scoring.
