BOYS BASKETBALL

Lexington makes tough plays late Tuesday

Craig Thomas
cthomas2@jacksonsun.com

LEXINGTON – Tuesday was not the first time Lexington almost let a shaky fourth quarter become a costly one.

As the Tigers (18-3), ranked sixth in the state, work through the postseason and face increasingly tough teams, it will be an important detail to fix.

After visiting Fayette-Ware surprised Lexington with a fourth-quarter run, Lexington scored the final five points for a 52-48 win.

“All season we’ve kind of been battling some end-of-game situations,” Lexington coach Andrew Hicks said. “We lost a couple early ones this season, had leads late in the game and we gave it away. We just didn’t handle the moments very well. Tonight we stepped up and made the tough plays.”

Tough play No. 1 might have been Memphis commit Nick Marshall’s block of Fayette-Ware’s Cortavious Miller, though Fayette-Ware soon took its one-point lead.

Tough play No. 2 was a short bank shot by senior David Fraser with 1:13 to go, giving Lexington the lead for good.

Lexington didn’t stop Miller often Tuesday, but tough play No. 3 came with 37.2 seconds left as Tariquious Tisdale drew a charge in the lane.

Dillon Smith made two free throws, and Marshall made one to secure a win.

Fayette-Ware’s fourth-quarter rally was driven by Miller, who led all scorers with 22 points. Hicks said he emphasized defending shooters Mikkel Norment and DJ Jackson (who combined for five points), though he acknowledged Fayette-Ware was a “monster nightmare matchup” for his team.

“We didn’t expect Miller to have as many as he did tonight as far as around the rim, but we really wanted to keep their shooters from getting hot and knocking down shots because if Norment or Jackson get hot, those guys are tough to stop,” Hicks said.

Smith and Tisdale led Lexington with 15 points each. Tisdale had a big sequence to open the second half, scoring twice near the rim and then earning a 3-point play off a pass from Marshall.

Marshall was guilty of an unhelpful 3-point try with two minutes to go, no doubt one of the examples of poor shot selection Hicks noticed, but the 6-10 senior asserted himself with several blocks on defense and plenty of rebounds. He had 12 points.

Hicks said his team’s senior core of Marshall, Smith, Fraser and Jordan Branch makes a big difference.

“We can be a one-man show every once in a while or we can have four guys score in double figures, five guys score in double figures,” he said. “I feel like that’s kind of what makes us dangerous.”

T’Varsky Freeman had 12 points for Fayette-Ware. Lexington can secure the district top seed with a win Friday at South Side.

Craig Thomas, 425-9634