Golden Falcons outlast Eagles in overtime

By Cam Ellis
Published in Sports on December 6, 2014 11:52 PM

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No one would have blamed the Charles B. Aycock students who made the cross-county trek to Rosewood if they had left at halftime Friday evening.

Some of them probably did.

Rosewood led by 20-plus points at the break and Aycock had just 23 points total. Each missed shot by the Golden Falcons caused the Eagles' fans to get louder.

It was a game of two halves, however. Aycock stormed back in the second half and came away with a 77-71 overtime win.

The Golden Falcons slowly clawed back into the game behind senior forward Myleah Jones, who found her groove in the third quarter and scored 19 of her 29 points in the second half. Jones' dominance down low was a halftime adjustment made by head coach Roy Harrell.

"[Rosewood] double teamed Myleah, because they knew," Harrell said. "I told the team to keep feeding it to her though. I said 'don't give up on what we do. Feed the post and then kick it back out.' We had to feed the post because Myleah is just too strong.

"She's a beast."

With just over 10 seconds left in regulation, Harrell called timeout and drew up one final play. The Golden Falcons inbounded the ball, which eventually wound up in the hands of sophomore guard Mookie Powell. She cut across the baseline and found space to score the game-tying layup as time expired.

The Golden Falcons continued to roll during overtime, outscoring the Eagles 10-4. Powell, fittingly, sealed the win by sinking two free throws with under a minute left to play.

"Well, we were down 20-something at half time," Harrell said, "and I just told the girls, 'There's no 20-point shot. You've got to get it back basket by basket. You've got to score and go down, and play solid defense. Don't go out there and try and force things.

"Two quarters is a long time. If they can go out and build up a 20-something point lead, we can knock it down."

The loss overshadowed another stellar performance from Lexi Mercer, who fouled with less than a minute remaining regulation. The junior shooting forward ended the night with 27 points, nine rebounds and two blocked shots.

"I like everything about [Mercer,]" RHS head coach Rick Grantham said. "She's an incredible talent. She's an incredible teammate; she's so supportive of her mates and wasn't selfish. I like everything about her -- except when she gets five fouls."

Although the loss was tough for the Eagles, Grantham thinks the early-season adversity will help his team in the long run.

"I told them, number one, when adversity happens, it's all about how you handle it," he said. "This is nothing; losing basketball games, that's nothing because you get more. In life, when you have certain situations -- whether you lose your job or have a family member that's sick -- sports teach you how to handle that.

"Do I shy away from it or do I try to get better?"

The teams meet again next Tuesday at Aycock.