Daphne upsets no. 6 MCGill Toolen
Posted December 15, 2013
MOBILE, Alabama – Daphne coach Cedric Yelding had a talk with freshman forward Justin Thomas on the way to Friday’s game at McGill-Toolen.
“He’s been kind of up and down, and I think that is mainly because of his youth,” Yelding said. “He had a good week of practice this week, and I told him I thought he was ready for a breakout game."
Yelding was right.
Thomas scored a team-high 15 points, including nine during a second-quarter rally, and Kareem Brown hit the go-ahead jumper with less than a minute left as the Trojans upset Class 6A No. 6 McGill-Toolen 59-55 at McGill.
“This is a great win for our program,” Yelding said. “In my 12 years at Daphne, I think I can count on one hand the amount of times we’ve won here. It is a tough place to play, and they obviously have a great team. This is a step in the right direction for us for sure.”
McGill (9-3) led by as many as eight in the second quarter, but Thomas sparked a Trojan rally that helped tie the game at 26-26 at intermission. The teams were still tied at 40-40 entering the final quarter.
The two teams traded the lead seven times in the final eight minutes. McGill built a 50-47 advantage midway through the quarter on two free throws each by Virginia Tech signee TJ Lang and Logan Cooney.
However, Daphne responded with a Devonte Young layup and then regained the lead at 51-50 on a pair of C.J. Yelding free throws following a technical foul on McGill-Toolen’s William Baggett with 2:57 left.
“We’ve been playing a lot of close games lately and been on the positive end of most of them,” McGill coach Phillip Murphy said. “Tonight, we weren’t. But I told our guys that sometimes losses can be good if they help you pinpoint what you need to improve. Daphne made one more play than us tonight. We made a big mistake with the technical foul, but all the credit goes to Daphne. They have a good team, and Cedric does a great job with them.”
McGill managed to regain the lead twice in the final few minutes – once on Lang’s jumper after a Cooney offensive rebound (52-51) and again on Dylan Smith’s basket with less than a minute left (55-54).
But Daphne got a big 3-pointer from Yelding with 1:27 left, then got Brown’s jumper to put the Trojans in the lead for good at 56-55. Daphne hit three of six free throws in the final 30 seconds to provide a slight cushion.
The Yellow Jackets had two more chances to tie the game, but Deion Dozier missed one free throw and had another erased by a lane violation with 18.4 seconds left and Lang was short on a 3-pointer in the final seconds.
Daphne (6-3) hit 16 of 27 free throws. McGill was 6 of 13.
“We beat Baldwin County earlier this week, but we missed 19 free throws in that game,” Cedric Yelding said. “We focused on that for two days this week, and it helped us tonight.”
C.J. Yelding followed Thomas on the Daphne scoring list with 13 points. Young had 10 and Tevin Rencher chipped in nine. Lang led all scorers with 19. Virginia Tech coach James Johnson was at the game, watching Lang.
Dozier finished with 14 for McGill, while Smith had nine.
McGill-Toolen plays at Moss Point, Miss., on Saturday night, while Daphne plays at LeFlore.
