Jon Ross. Shannon Carmack photo.
By Mike London
Salisbury Post
HICKORY — Central Davidson’s execution on its final possession couldn’t have been any more perfect.
A down screen on the block eliminated a Salisbury defender. A precision pass by unselfish guard Marcus Burt followed and set up the clutch, 3-point shot that Eli Staten calmly swished from the right corner. Staten drilled it as confidently as if he was hanging out in his own driveway.
As Staten followed through, arm high, on the biggest shot of his life, Spartan fans punched the air and delirious Central Davidson cheerleaders turned the seats at Lenoir-Rhyne’s Shuford Gym into a trampoline.
Salisbury’s one-point lead had been transformed into a two-point deficit in a blink. There were less than three seconds left in the 4A West Regional final and the Hornets hadn’t scored a point in more than three minutes.
But Salisbury got a timeout and no one was frantic. No one panicked.
“We talk often about staying in the moment,” Salisbury head coach Albert Perkins said. “We stayed in the moment. We didn’t get exactly what we wanted coming out of the timeout, but we did get a pretty decent look. We knew Jon (Ross) would make a good inbounds pass. We knew Jon would find somebody.”
Ross has a strong left arm and he found somebody.
He zinged an arrow of a baseball pass to Royce Perkins right at mid-court. Lots of long passes have some wiggle to them, but this one was straight. Perkins made the catch on the move, in light traffic, took a dribble to balance his aim and let it fly.
The ball banked in cleanly as if its final destination already had been ordained and decreed by the basketball gods. The mature freshman, the coach’s son, was a hero, and Hornet fans celebrated a turbulent, amazing 47-46 victory that propelled them into their first state championship game since Fred Campbell, Bryan Withers. Donald Jenkins and Warren Alexander were doing their thing in 1987.
“Maybe it was just our time,” Coach Perkins said. “This was an awesome basketball game.”
Perkins, the younger one, said it was an unreal and surreal experience, but his father said it’s a shot the kid has practiced a thousand times. What percentage of those shots he’s actually made, they didn’t say.
“Just grateful for the moment,” the young phenom said with the smile of a winner.
Salisbury will play the survivor of Saturday afternoon’s Reidsville-Washington game (at East Carolina) for the 4A state title.
“Yes, we had some luck tonight, but I don’t care how it happened,” Coach Perkins said. “What mattered is we found a way to survive and a way to advance. We’re still playing.”
The game had little in common with the fourth-round game at Lexington in which the Hornets dug a 19-3 hole, then got hot and won going away.
This much more like the third-round Hibriten game, a grinder, a tense and tight scrap right from the start, with neither team ever able to build more than a five-point advantage.
Ross came out of the gate smoking, a trio of 3-balls in the first quarter. His third one cut Central’s lead to 14-12 at the end of the first quarter.
Perkins had two fouls just three minutes into the game, but his understanding of how to play the game is advanced for such a young guy, and his coaches kept him on the floor.
“Royce doesn’t get in foul trouble often, doesn’t pick up many bad fouls,” Coach Perkins said. “We thought he would be OK. We left him in. This was one of those games where your main guys have to be out there.”
Neither team could change the scoreboard with any frequency in the second quarter. Braylon Taylor, the Hornets’ leading scorer, made a three-point play for a 19-all tie at the half. Taylor, a senior Catawba College recruit, averages better than 18 per game. That was his first bucket.
The Spartans (20-7) continued to control pace in the third quarter. Central went up five, but another Taylor three-point play got Salisbury even at 26-all midway through the quarter. Blake Smith scored off the offensive glass for 30-all to close the quarter.
Salisbury went up by five at 35-30 as the fourth quarter got rolling, thanks to a Taylor pull-up and a corner 3-ball by Jayden Jones. Jones’ first bucket of the night was a key one.
Smith slammed, a vicious assault on the rim, for a 39-35 advantage, but the Spartans came back with a couple of 3-pointers and grabbed a 43-41 lead as the scoreboard clock dipped under four minutes.
With 3:28 left, Ross, quiet as far as the scorebook since the opening minutes, made his presence known with his fourth 3-pointer to give the Hornets a 44-43 lead.
There was a lot of cat-and-mouse after that, with the Hornets being exceptionally patient with the ball.
It was getting late, and that 44-43 Salisbury lead was still holding up.
But with 11 seconds left, Central created a jump ball situation and earned a possession. There were 9.6 seconds left.
Then Central ran its play for Staten, who banged the corner 3. Staten probably deserved for that shot to make him a legend in Davidson County, but it was not to be. His swish only set the stage for the sensational banker by Perkins that topped it.
Ross and Perkins scored 12 each. Taylor had 10. Smith only scored eight but had 17 rebounds.
“He’s been our enforcer all season,” Coach Perkins said.
Central, which started four juniors, was led by Carson Hulsizer (14 points) and Staten (13). The Spartans’ decent 6-for-18 3-point shooting wasn’t good enough. They usually shoot better than that from long distance.
“We fought like crazy in a tough, back-and-forth high school basketball game,” drained Central head coach Dustin Tysinger said. “We tried to mix our defenses up and keep Salisbury off-balance. They’re really good, really well-coached and they’re a lot bigger than us. We couldn’t have asked our guys for any more than what they gave us. Just really proud of all of them. But it came down to a half-court heave, and we didn’t have luck on our side tonight.”
(4) Central Davidson 12 7 11 16 — 46
(3) Salisbury 14 5 11 17 — 47
CD — Hulsizer 14, Staten 13, Mullins 7, White 6, Dally 4, Holmes 2.
SHS — Ross 12, Perkins 12, Taylor 10, Smith 8, Jones 5.
