‘Give the ball to the big fellow.’ Junior star sparks Harrison Central past Gulfport.
Harrison Central went on a 20-9 tear in the third quarter to pull away from Gulfport in a semifinal battle in the Gulfport Holiday Classic at Bert Jenkins Gymnasium on Friday.
The Red Rebels closed out the Admirals 62-57, earning the opportunity to face Meridian High — the No. 1 team in the state — in the title game.
After the lead changed a total of eight times in the first half, Gulfport led 28-25 at halftime. But the Red Rebels unleashed their junior standout, Carlous Williams, in the third quarter as he scored the first seven points in the period to take the lead at 32-28 with 5:40 left in the third quarter.
They held onto the lead the rest of the way.
“In the first half I just wasn’t feeling it; it wasn’t falling for me,” Williams said. “At halftime, coach came and talked to me; he told me to get my head up. Things started picking up, and everything started falling.”
Williams scored 12 of the Red Rebels 20 points in the third quarter and he finished the game with 21 total
“At halftime we talked about them getting a lot of easy baskets and we weren’t really focusing on defense the way we should have, so our goal at halftime was to come out and defend a whole lot better and give the ball to the big fellow,” said Red Rebels coach Boo Hardy. “He’s a matchup problem.
“We challenged him at halftime, because he only had two or three points. He’s a Dandy Dozen, so he needed to play like one.”
Harrison Central pushed its advantage to as many as 11 points (48-37), but the Admirals chipped at the lead with the help of a couple of fourth quarter three-point baskets from Dean Drake and a tip-in and three-point play from Reubon Kelly, the latter of which brought the Admirals within two (56-58) with 1:03 left in the game.
“The third quarter was the difference in the game,” Gulfport coach Owen Miller said. “Carlous got going a little bit. He made a couple of jump shots, and I thought that was a big part of them getting going. And then we had some empty possessions on the other end. But we got it right back to two and we missed back to back free throws. We missed a layup there in the fourth quarter, but really, we were down by 11; but I am proud of how we fought back.
“When you play a game like this, it comes down to three or four possessions, and the teams that makes the plays during those possessions wins, and Harrison Central did that tonight.”
Kelly led Gulfport scorers with 20 points. Drake added 12 and Keijuan Johnson scored 10 points.
Jacobi Moore and Mikel King each scored 10 points for Harrison Central.
Harrison Central improved to 13-3 going into Saturday’s 7:30 p.m. game against Meridian. Gulfport’s record is at 14-3 and they were set to meet Madison Central in the third place game at 6 p.m. on Saturday.