Leesburg edges Wolfson 57-56 in Class 6A boys hoops state semifinal

LAKELAND - The Wolfson boys basketball team had the game in its hands and let it slip away Friday.

Not once, not twice, but three times in the game's final 66 seconds.

Two lost balls and a traveling call in the final 1:06 turned a three-point Wolfpack lead into a 57-56 loss to Leesburg in the Class 6A state semifinals. The Wolfpack, making their first state semifinal appearance since 1999, still had a chance in the game's final seconds, but a full-court heave at the buzzer had no shot of going in.

The Yellow Jackets (23-9) advanced to Saturday's state championship against Miami Norland, and Wolfson (25-6) has an agonizing loss to think about all summer. The Wolfpack didn't get a shot off in the game's final 1:06 and couldn't take advantage of Leesburg's 0-for-4 performance from the foul line in that span.

"We'll be back," Wolfson's Lawrence Taylor said. "We've got a team full of juniors."

Wolfson, which trailed by as many as 11 in the third quarter, fought back to take a 56-53 lead on a pair of three throws by Jasper Sasser and a layup by Kerry White with just over a minute to play. The Wolfpack just didn't plan on things going so badly from there. Leesburg's Julliard Roberts forced back-to-back steals in the backcourt and finished them both off with baskets.

With 55.4 seconds to play, the 57-56 deficit didn't bother Wolfson.

Coach Bruce Rosebrock said his plan was to try and draw a foul of some kind instead of running the clock down for a final shot, but it didn't work out that way. Leesburg backed off its pressure a little bit and forced Wolfson to spread the ball all over the perimeter, at one point nearly getting another steal before deflecting it out of bounds. The Wolfpack drained another 22 seconds off the clock before moving it to Lucious Richardson just inside the right of the free throw line, where he was stonewalled by two defenders and had to look for help.

Richardson spun and pivoted to try and kick the ball out to the perimeter, but was called for traveling.

The Wolfpack fouled immediately on the inbounds pass to put Taj Lake on the free-throw line, where he missed both. But Wolfson was out of position on the carom, and Leesburg's D'Mauri Jones pulled in the rebound. Jones was fouled with 1.7 seconds left and promptly missed both of his free throws. But the Wolfpack just didn't have time to do anything but heave the ball the distance of the floor.

"This game right here was a fun game to watch if you [weren't] a coach," Leesburg coach Marcel Harris said.

Wolfson was forced to play a totally different game than the one it used to get to the state semifinals. Always reliant on its 3-point shooting, the Wolfpack couldn't shoot much from that distance because of Leesburg's defense. That affected Wolfson significantly in the first half, and it showed with a seven-point halftime deficit that grew to a 38-27 hole midway through the third quarter.

The Wolfpack's strategy changed after that, forgoing the 3 and going inside more and more. Wolfson finished just 3 of 13 from the 3-point line.

"It was time to turn it up," Rosebrock said of the second-half shift. "We had to be aggressive."

Only Sasser managed to score in double figures for Wolfson, going for 10 points. As a team, Leesburg shot nearly 50 percent from the field (23 of 47).

Justin Barney: (904) 359-4248