Taylor leads Team South in overtime

March 25, 2007|by JACK HILL III

Will Taylor scored 10 of his game-high 24 points in overtime as Team South squeezed out an 86-79 win over Team North during 2007 McDonald's Roundball Classic boys game Saturday night at Hagerstown Community College.

"I did what had to be done," Taylor said. "I am bigger than anyone else, so I just muscled my way through there. We played hard and we left everything out on the court for the last game. We rebounded more and we played harder defense in overtime."

Chad Poffenberger started the overtime period by making a pair of foul shots for Team South. Ben Alencherry responded with a basket for Team North to even the score.

Team South outscored Team North 10-3 over the next three minutes to build an 83-76 lead with 1:45 remaining in OT as Taylor made five straight baskets during that stretch. Team North never got any closer than five points the rest of the way.

"It was a great game," Team South coach Sam Connelly said. "We just wanted to give Will Taylor the ball. He was posting up strong down low. He also did an excellent job on the boards and on the defensive end. We got a lead at the beginning of the overtime period and that gave us a spark. We took good care of the basketball and only had one turnover in the overtime."

Mike DeBarge scored 13 points and Adam Flook added 11 points for Team South.

Muzammil Bhutto tallied 16 points, Logan Bolinger got 13 points and Tyrone Wheeler had 11 points for Team North.

"When Will Taylor gets mad enough to score inside, he is unstoppable," Team North coach Dennis Seman said. "It's hard to coach kids when you only have two practices. But the effort and the intensity of all of the players was great. Every single one of the players should be proud of themselves."

n Taylor edged Wheeler 39-37 in the championship round of the Slam Dunk Contest.

The winning pair in the Hot Shot Contest was Logan Bolinger and Clara Spicer of St. Maria Goretti as they defeated the Boonsboro pair of Adam Flook and Jerica Hewett 34-20 in the championship round.

"We had a strategy that we we were going to try to take as many five-pointers as possible," Bolinger said. "We were able to get hot and hit them."

"You could only take two of those five-point shots at a time," Spicer said. "But we were fortunate to hit those five-point shots."

In the Three-Point Shootout, Dustin Hull of Hancock defeated Bhutto 8-4 in the boys championship. Alex Baker of Boonsboro defeated Shawayna Morel of North Hagerstown 7-3 in the girls championship.

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